Indeed. Yes. That's my field...again. It won't be like this for much longer - Emilio gives it 10 days before he sends in the tractors - well, Gennaro and one tractor. Not even at night. Not any more. Air-conditioned Lamborghinis have done for night-time harvesting. I wrote something about that once, in another life. It's gone now. How I miss the night-time harvesters.

It was when summer was summer and truly hot (stop me, before I start banging on about how we don't have proper seasons any more...), when the only thing anyone could do in the evening was sit outside. In the dark.
Everyone sits out in the summer here: some on their balconies or terraces, if they have them; others will sit on benches along the street, bring chairs from home, make a night of it. Same faces. Every night. People will be out until midnight, or even later on a proper summer evening. Just chewing the fat, watching who comes and goes, keeping an eye on the kids playing outside...

It will all start again now. School ended today - a week late because of the snow month we had in February. That makes tomorrow Day 1 and only 94 to go...

But I digress. Again. Where was I? Tractors. My field. Not all fields are like my field. Some have proper slopes. Emilio confessed that he "flattened" my field a bit when he bought it, changed its shape a little, made it easier to work, less "scenic". It'll do me. I like it fine.
Way back, when I lived somewhere else, with a balcony, and the summers were hot, the glow worms had finished and the cicadas were out in full force, I would sit on my dark, dark balcony until late at night, watching the tractors - or rather, the large combines - harvesting the wheat fields. Huge alien headlamps at unheard of angles, engines rumbling until 3 or 4 in the morning, while it was still cool enough to work and the air was not so damp as to cover everything in dew.
Oh, but they were glorious! Some nights, if the moon was high enough and large enough, it was possible to see the silhouetted hillsides, high up over my house and off in the distance, and three or four of these combines, each in its own separate field, doing its individual line dance, following sequences and routines that had been practised all year: up and down, down and up, each one on its own, at some improbable angle, making me think that gravity is indeed such a wonderful and kick-ass force, really...Big shadowy monsters with bright white eyes...

I'm prattling again...Have a tune.