machines, the earth

I spent almost all of Tuesday and Wednesday on one of the tractors, plowing two fields. (Or ploughing?) Anyway, quite a time. All of it was new to me; the tractor we had at the farm last year didn't have a plow, so I'd never used one.
It's a neat experience, but terrifying in the beginning. You estimate the midpoint of the field and then drive your first furrow right there, as straight as possible, and then turn around and make another one next to it coming back the other direction. So you have two parallel deep lines in the field, and the continued furrow-making brings them further and further apart until you reach the opposite edge of the field with each line.
Making any new furrow means putting two wheels in the deep ditch of the previous furrow, so I spent both days sitting at a crazy angle on the tractor, one side way down in the ground - very scary at first, but you get used to it. Feels like any second the machine's tipping over and burying you, but really it's all fine.
It works about 12 inches at a time; we have is a double-bottom plow, so two blades - one digs down a little deeper than the other, turning over the earth, and overlapping one blade's work with the previous furrow. This takes FOREVER.
To make sure things are going okay, you generally do a lot of checking behind you (hello, sore neck): is the plow at the right depth in the soil, did a huge rock knock the blade out, am I driving straight and in the right place, etc. And it looks amazing - the blades dig quite deeply into the soil and flip it, in huge pieces at a time. It almost looks like the front of a ship in the water, slicing through so cleanly. You could get quite poetic sitting up there, looking at the action.
The birds immediately settle into the newest piece to find treats, so even while driving a loud machine with ear protection on, I could hear chirping all day, both days. I was thinking of a couple songs about plowing - Godspell, maybe? and some hymns, so I did a little singing with my ears covered and raging engine noise in the background, which feels a little silly, but it's a long time sitting and there's a lot of nice songs out there.
And the field looks so different afterwards, so much closer to planting, so ready for growing. The plow erases the dormancy of the winter and the cover crops of the spring, as important as they are - making way for the real thing. Farming is so full of accomplishments. Birds! Poetry! Worms! Dirt! A new field!

Today was 90 degrees, and we all went for ice cream after the day ended. Not bad either.