the headers struggle. Low ground was too wet. The crew divided into two teams: experienced operators moving carefully through accessible fields, and ground personnel managing trucks, grain tickets, fuel, and safety checks. Hollis alternated between the grain elevator and the barn, learning that coordinating a crew could be harder than driving a machine. Every person needed correct information. Every change in plan spread through radios, phone calls, and handwritten notes.
One truck reached the elevator without a ticket showing the field of origin. Hollis met the driver there and reconstructed the load from the cart log and time records, then corrected the system before any grain was mixed into the wrong accounting category. Another truck returned early because the driver was exhausted. Hollis told him to sleep and found a rested replacement rather than argue about lost time. A third driver reported a soft shoulder on the county road, and she adjusted the route to keep heavy vehicles off it. Her father had handled such details almost invisibly. She was discovering how much work invisibility required.
Late that afternoon, a side window in the old tractor shattered. A fist-sized chunk of dried wood had been blown loose from a rotten barn fascia during a gust, and the glass fell inward while the tractor was parked. Hollis stood beside the machine with her stomach turning. She had been planning to use it after the replacement picker parts arrived. Now there were sharp fragments in the cab and a missing weather barrier. Ellis inspected the opening and explained that the tractor could not safely be returned to work in driving rain without suitable repair and cleanup.
For a moment, the loss seemed ridiculous enough to make her laugh. A three-hundred-thousand-dollar combine disabled by software. A forty-seven-year-old tractor awakened through patience. A picker repaired by strangers. And now a rotten board had taken out the window. She sat on a hay bale and laughed until the laughter collapsed into a sob. Ellis stood beside her, looking uncomfortable, then placed a clean shop towel within reach without attempting to solve what no tool could fix.
"I'm tired," Hollis admitted.
"I can see that."
"I keep thinking if I work hard enough, one of these things will finally stop happening."