Relative Something

After dark Tuesday night, the familiar rumble of a harvest tractor at high RPMs revealed that we have entered the time when the neighboring farmers are bringing in their crops. They do not pause for darkness, giving evenings a sort of mythical energy not normally present.

It’s weird to walk out in the morning and see the landscape abruptly scraped clean to the soil.

I watched yesterday afternoon as they finished a field of corn just to our south. The high RPMs of the big engine reverberates across the distance when the tractor turns, pointing the raw sound directly toward us. It dulls again as the combine swings around for the next pass. A dusty cloud follows behind.

That harvest rumble is both annoying and comforting at the same time. It’s not unlike the roar of a vacuum cleaner in the house. It’s great that our floors are getting cleaned, but each additional minute of the loud, droning VROOM! ratchets up the involuntary tightening of neck muscles, inducing an unconscious angst.

It feels soooo good when that noisy motor stops.

The tractor left that field, and the sound resumed from the next one down the road. A fading harvest rumble.

While we were feeding the horses, I lingered for a moment to listen to the four of them munching away and realized the tractor rumbling had stopped. It was remarkably serene.

With the low sunshine of late October illuminating the tops of the colorful trees on the horizon, the incredible quiet settling over the land now that the rumbling had stopped, and the calm, contented feeding mares radiating their peaceful energy, it was perfectly blissful.

The harvest rumble is a good thing, but an even better thing is the sound of the silence when it stops.

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