Where Corn Is

Harvest is nearing completion in Indiana as the chaff flies from combines across the state. Their headlights pierce the dark.

The day I took this picture, I stood on the field's edge, the wind rushing through the rows, the papery leaves rustling. It's a grounding sound, corn having been a North American staple for thousands of years.

Plants can give one a sense of place. Four months in to a year of work and travel in New Zealand, I was so startled at my first sighting of a familiar field that I exclaimed, "Corn! What?" At some of my places of employment, cows ate kale in pastures or imported palm kernel extract in troughs. Sheep and deer grazed on alfalfa and grasses. I don't remember seeing any soybean fields.

The Hoosier landscape is quite different now: the tunnels we raced down all summer are now gone, and we can see the horizon again, in time for the stunning winter sunsets the cold brings.

Thanks for Reading!

And I hope you feel refreshed and rejuvenated for the week ahead with this moment preserved in picture and prose. Consider:

• What kind of plants belong uniquely to the place where you live?

Think of someone who could use a pause this week, and share your answer and this newsletter with them.

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This Week on the Farm

Preparations for the North American International Livestock Exposition continue, and we're pretty excited! Other than that, we are awaiting more rain. The nearby creeks are low.