Every year till now there have been hard days working at the corn fields. I love working in the fields, though it IS hard work and there is always the risk of seeing a snake. Its a great break from the cold silent lab and the continuous thinking/calculating process and lab drama. Field work usually consists of corn pollinating, bagging, picking, inoculating etc etc in hot blazing sun. You need to be dressed in work pants/shorts carry a lot water and not be a dainty darling. But it pays off. Its usually refreshing and the grouchy grumpy mood swings amongst co-workers is way less. The last comes the best part, harvesting. With hands on experience in the field I can now easily understand why every culture and country have some sort of harvest festival. The feeling is amazing (Even though we are harvesting infesting - hybrid - mutated research corn). Its so much fun to see full-full ears of golden-yellow corn. Every year the department of agriculture decides on a day stating that after that the nights are going to get too cold to keep the corn. And so we harvest. The whole lab including professors, neighboring labs, neighboring schools are there and there is always a tiny party while harvesting. And then tractor rides. And then cold beer under the sun along with chips and salsa. If you are no beer drinker, then you go find some pond water.
But it also makes me a tad sad. While driving back I start noticing the trees developing a rusty shade. Soon they will be just trunk and sticks. The nights are getting cooler and the "shorts, flip-flops, tank tops, shades" days are almost over. We will see less and less of those self -timed sprinklers or daisies on the patio, or home grown tomatoes.
Today we did our final corn harvesting and the routine I spoke about. It ends all the breaks we had from the lab and also ends sample collection times. The next six months will just be focusing in the lab and not running out of sample. It will also get cold, depressing, dark and green-less.We can still find alternatives like white sleet of snow or a hot chocolate milk to talk about, but thats where we stand now. I am sad the summer is almost over. A toast to a beautiful summer, plentiful sunshine, lots of rain and a wonderful harvest.
