an evening in the field.

On Monday, Rhett and I went out to spend some time with Shane in the field.

Back in high school Shane worked for a farmer - and even though he hasn't been employed by him for years, during planting and harvest he occasionally gets to hop back in the seat.

I need you to know that Shane working for Ted is like if I worked for Shauna Niequist. It's like a dreamland. DREAMS.

Ted's wife Pat used to be the home economics teacher at our high school and for lunch would make Shane and Ted homemade meals with a side of mountain dew.

It was rough.

As we've gotten older, Ted and Pat have attended our wedding, sent baby gifts, brought us pizza when we were in the middle of renovating the slate house, let my family help level off grain bins and call us up to go on double dates to Pagliai's pizza in Grinnell.

We like them a whole lot.

Here's what Shane does when he helps out. 

He unloads the semi full of corn into a grain bin. He uses this fancy remote thing to swing a little contraption underneath the semi and then all the corn goes up up and away! 

Or something like that. 

And then he drives the semi back to the field, walks to a tractor that has a grain cart attached to it that Ted has been emptying into from the combine, and then unloads the corn from the grain cart into the semi. 

Or something like that. 

Repeat, repeat, repeat until the cows come home. 

Or until you're done with a field.

My favorite part of the evening besides experiencing a lot of firsts as a family was Pat's comment as we were loading up to leave. 

"It's been a long time since a 1 year old has been on the farm."

Having a baby around makes life just a little bit sweeter. 

Just a little bit.