When the field grains turn gold and combines of various colors come out of hiding and the harvest moon glows, field lunches tend to become the norm and find themselves in the hands of farm laborers everywhere.

Harvest brings families and friends together to reap what they sow, so to speak. Their days begin early and end late, and somewhere in the midst of all those hours, they find themselves clawing through their nosebag — an affectionate term our family learned while working with a farm associate, who explained to my guys that, “…your nose — or someone’s nose — is always in that lunch bag.”

As long as that’s the kind of bag a person finds themselves in, harvest can still continue without the need of a sheriff or a breathalyzer.

A neighbor of ours received help from his father during harvest time. Our neighbors ran a dairy (as they still do) and they had eight growing children at the time. I spoke with the wife of that grandfather one time, who told me she usually packed a “generous lunch” for him each day.

She said the young kids would get into his lunch all morning, and she always hoped there would be something left for him by the time he had a chance to gaze into his lunch pail at noon.

Before I became part of the harvest team, I helped bring hot meals to the field, which really wasn’t a terrible job. It’s just that working it around a full-time job and an hour’s worth of daily livestock chores, supper prep to clean up and lunches to pack for three or four people, when I finished with that … well, let’s say I should have a waistline the size of angel hair pasta.

Time was of the essence then, and I remember one fall as harvest was approaching, planning menus and purchasing all the foods I needed to get me through the entire feeding frenzy of nosebags and hot meals — until the last grain bin was filled for the year.

Pre-harvest, I purchased the food items and stuffed them everywhere I had room in the house. I’m sure if someone would have rifled through our towel closet, they would have wondered why a stack of tuna cans, boxes of instant everything and cans of cling peaches were living in there.

That fall the only items left after the grain dust settled and all the meals had been made were a jar of pickles and a jar of mayonnaise.

I had guessed pretty close; and it was glorious to discover my towels again.

There is something about eating a field lunch. There is far too much excitement happening if you’re a kid eating a lunch in the cab of a harvest vehicle, whether they have four wheels or 18. It’s exciting even as an old kid, dreaming of paying bills, expanding, and some years, just being grateful that, while there won’t be a new farm vehicle in the picture, there is a good chance that you may still be in business another year.

It seems like I always choose the most inopportune time to slide my hand into the nosebag and extract a sandwich. I dream of being able to eat it with my feet up somewhere, and even have time to lick the peanut butter and jelly from my fingers.

Typically, I grossly misjudge how short of a time it takes to get to the truck to unload, or even how long it takes me to eat a sandwich. Regardless, I’ve become a professional at speed-wrapping a sandwich and stuffing it back into my nosebag.

For some reason, a roast beef sandwich tastes so great out in the field. But sometimes when I get one back out to finish it — which may happen a handful of times before I actually get the sandwich entirely eaten — it’s appearance could warrant the services of someone who investigates mysterious life forms.

Still, as sandwich lunches go, there’s hardly a better place to eat one than out in the sunshine and in a field that is being harvested; even if the sandwich has been re-wrapped half a dozen times when the corn harvest is at its busiest.

Farm laborers know the importance of keeping their nose to the grindstone … and keeping their nosebag fully stocked for people of any age who may end up with their nose in that bag.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net