8.25.15 The way of it

     I didn't know him, but I saw him every year. On his tractor, in that field, planting, harvesting. Then two years ago, I saw him harvesting the corn. The next day, there was the tractor, and the hood up. The work abruptly stopped. It stayed that way till late late fall. Soon the tractor disappeared from the field, but the field was never harvested. 
     Sometimes I wondered to myself how that works, being a farmer in the area, with other farmers. If it's everyone for themselves, or if you have to have a nice enough personality that you can trade helping.
     That was two years ago. And now, here we are in late summer. And suddenly, there is a real estate sign.
     You know , I've been watching those ditches and fields, photographing them in all seasons, for years.
     Watching the wildlife, watching the turkeys pass by. Like a friend somewhere nearby, and yet now, this will no longer be.
     They won't buy another tractor. They won't continue tilling and planting and harvesting ,and then turning over that soil.
     That's it. That's enough.
     And we notice as we get older, , when we are no longer yearlings, what with all those great plans and imagining all sorts of possibilities, spread out before us and our minds, we begin to notice how these things happen, all around us.
     This is what happens to lives. It simply is. This is what happens to land.
And so here I am, gazing across these beautiful fields, with its forest along the edge, thinking of the paths made by deer and coyote on Fox, throughout the winter, as they go down to the stream to drink. To hunt. To feed. As they raise their young ones, and watch them grow up and go out on their own.      This is the way of it.