The Old Farm

The old farm fades with yellow at the end of a hot summer. Sunflowers grow up in the fences and sneeze weed takes the pasture. Butterflies, bumblebees, cicadas, ants, honey bees, spiders, dragonflies and horseflies hover, zip, crawl, fly, buzz, and hum the moisture from the prarie grasses and wildflowers. The horses and cows graze peacefully flapping their tails at insects and ignoring the blazing sun. Farmers fill their tractors with fuel and cut and rake hay with sweaty bandanas wrapped ’round their dry throats. The bales are stacked along the north fence and firewood is split and stacked against the seeming impossibility of a coming cold snowy blowy wet harsh winter. No one on the old farm really expects the yellow will change to brown and then to white––at least not any time soon.