An Iowa Spook

There is nothing more spooky to me at this time of year then coming across a farmer harvesting his fields after dark. You are dirving across a country road and you see this beaming light surrounded by fog and dust. Like an alien about to take flight or a raging bull wearing a floodlamp, it seems to falter amid a half-shorn field. I've witnessed the night farmers every fall as they scurry about trying to bring in their bounty before it freezes and yet, every time I happen across the harvester in the field at night, it gives me pause. At first, it truly is the spook in the field. Then, you realize that this is farm labor at its truest, toiling away when conditions are right, weather and light aside. It is silent to those driving by in their sealed, cozy vehicles. It creates chaos for those critters that had previously called the field their home. And, when you go by the next day, you see that the field is now naked, stripped of the goodness it created over all those months of the growing season. The beast that raged in the darkness has moved on and left behind an emptiness waiting for the snow and an openness that extends across the horizon that once swayed with the corn in the wind. The night harvester is industrious, frantic, silent and quick. And he only exists for a few short weeks before winter sets in.