The heat and humidity move across the land as living things. The heavy air sits stolid and somber causing our clothes to stick the moment we step on the threshold. The wind buffets us in suffocating waves and we move slowly and sluggishly across the yard.
The sprinkler tic-tic-tics parting the pallid atmosphere. The dogs lie in the shade, pant in rhythm. The low locust buzz pulsates in the woods as we reach for the door handles.

The water jug and lunchbox take a backseat. We buckle up and motor north. Clouds of dust appear here and there as we drive by neighboring fields. The ground turns over, dirt crumbling, weeds dying, prepping soil for the next cycle of growth.
We turn left. Ice rattles in the backseat. We catch up for a few minutes on our few-mile drive. Ask a few questions. Share a funny story. We turn left again. One more left and we finagle our way toward the back forty where the tractor is making rounds.
We cut the engine. Roll down windows and listen to the low tractor roar throb through the grass. It wends its way our way. The tractor looks a little tired too, of this one hundred-degree heat.
Plumey grass waves around us, in front of us, catching the first evening rays. A killdeer calls and a dragonfly buzzes in lazy loops beside the open window.
The tractor chugs and turns and halts. A cloud of dust trails away in the humid air. The water jug and the lunch box and their owner clamber from bucket seats and across running boards. They trek toward the field edge where the good farmer man is traversing the three-tread tractor steps.
There at the field edge, on a hot July evening, the two men pause in exchange.
An exchange of field conditions.
An exchange of operations.
The reverberation of farm life.
Daily and yearly rituals repeated for another round.
Work and dust and sweat.
Weeds and wind and weather.
Working against and working for.
The farming of the soil is always and again a representation of the cycles of life, the struggles of life, the ever-and-always changingness-of-life, the triumphs of life, the miracle of life. Anew and Renewed.