Yesterday afternoon the weather was October bright and sunny, perfect for a drive to northwest Iowa. There are plenty of state highways that wind from where I live to where I needed to be, plenty of ways to vary the route. But most of the highways in that part of our state are two lane roads. Which means the speed limit is 55, practically crawling along.
But this time of year, in a state covered with drying soy bean and corn fields ready for harvest, 55 miles an hour is a luxury on dry, sunny, October days. Slow-moving vehicles – combines, tractors pulling grain wagons full or empty, and grain trucks – crowd the highways as the farmers scurry to harvest the fruit of the past year’s labor.
Stuck behind the giant farm machines, I had time to observe the activity in the fields. Combines ate rows of corn in giant mouthfuls, spitting the golden kernels in the wagons following in tandem. In other fields, the bounty already devoured and carted away, farmers steered tractors down stubbly rows, disking the rubble into the black dirt.
Trailing behind lumbering, clanging wagons, I took in the last, mad, magnificent gasp of fall. Milkweed pods were bursting open in the ditches. Blossoming mums created splashes of bright color beside farm houses and barns. Grain dust turned the sunset pink and lovely. Trees glowed gold and red and orange along the banks of wayward cricks and streams. The rustling, crackling ditch grasses swayed in the light breeze.“Slow down,” they whispered. “You move too fast. Got to make the moment last.”
Calmed by their soft whisper, I patiently plied the breaks. Smiling, I hummed a little Simon and Garfunkel under my breath, and relished the drive.
