Where We Get Our Food : Corn Harvest in the Texas Panhandle

I’ll admit it. I’m a city girl.

That’s not something most Texans admit. There’s a lot of country pride in my state. But I grew up in a big city suburb and I’ve never lived in anything even remotely close to a town. I don’t know anything about farms.

My husband is a farm boy.

While he’s spent most of his adult life in cities, the wide open spaces of West Texas are where he feels most at peace. He’s probably clocked more hours working on the farm than flying, and he’s been flying for over 10 years.

When we go to visit his family, it’s a weird clash of cultures for me. James is clearly at home and the fact that all I can see for miles and miles are corn fields is a bit unnerving to me. And this is West Texas. It’s so flat you can see next Thursday from here.

During our road trip to Albuquerque, the kids demanded a stop at Grandma and Grandpa’s and James was excited that it corresponded to corn harvest. He took me out to the fields at sunset to check out some of the action. He jumped aboard a farm equipment thingamajig to ride for a while, but I opted to stay behind in the field to photograph the sunset.