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Into the Corn Field

Adam's curse haunts us still...


Weeds grow along side of our beautiful corn crop. We cultivate over and over during the beginning of the summer, to keep weeds at bay. All we are really trying to do is to give the corn a head start. Once the corn is too tall to cultivate, we let the weeds try to catch up. They get a bit more sun near the edge of the field, and grow with abandon.


They grow tall, and lush, with seeds to pollute next year's field.


But walk a bit INTO the field, and the weeds aren't so thick. The corn canopy has successfully shaded out all but the most determined weeds. It's cool in here, and the corn leaves brush against you as you walk. Careful, the edges can be a bit sharp if you're moving too fast. If the corn is dry and brown, the wind causes a rattling noise as the dry leaves brush/crunch up against each other.

When the kids were little, I worried more about them falling in the big ditch by our house. But I've heard of kids wandering into or hiding in corn fields. Hard to find them. If you ever get lost in a corn field, just keep walking, following a row straight out. Eventually, you'll come to the edge of a field (fields are typically smaller in Michigan than in Iowa or Indiana or Illinois, so choose your corn field wisely) and you can make your way back to where you started by going AROUND the corn field.


Ah, here's what we're after. Field corn, mostly raised for livestock consumption, waiting to dry down and be harvested later this fall.

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