It’s a wonder how filled with useless philosophy we can become the longer we work on an endless task — like harvesting … or making holiday candies, or even something as simple as riding a bean bar.

I remember those endless moving rows during the short time I spent on a bean bar. Most of my childhood years were spent actually walking beans, but whenever I was subjected to that new brand of adolescent torture, I remember hardly being able to stay awake as those rows whizzed past me. I’m pretty sure Dad could point to the reason if he ever got docked by the good people of Sands of Iowa for sending them lesser quality seed beans.

It also gave me a glimpse into my adult world of traveling on a semi. When assuming the role of passenger in the truck with my husband as he hauled soybeans across the state or calves from Montana, it didn’t matter what time we left home — the open road took hold of me and left me snoring in the passenger seat at least 40 minutes into the trek.

There may have been as many slobber sightings up front as there were among the cattle in the back.

Last fall as we were working in a half-section field, I remembered feeling like we were never going to get done with it. It was a long way across there, and it felt like we were never going to get done with a field that appeared to be half the size of Texas and twice as mysterious.

I nearly experienced petrification by the sheer repetition of the job day after day — when I stumbled upon the newest wonder of the world — that the whole harvesting job is completed one load at a time.

The combine chews up each single stalk and eats the grain, then spooeys it out into a cart, and the cart hauls it to the truck, which hauls it to the elevator or waiting grain bins.

This epiphany meant that I had finally grown up and truly understood that slow and steady eventually does win the race. Our fields are harvested one single load at a time.

In a small field, as it is in a half-section-sized field — that’s a lotta single wagon or cart loads hauled to trucks, and a lot of single truck loads hauled to the elevator or grain bins.

For some reason, my mind short-circuited briefly as I came to grips with this new and completely unexpected revelation.

It might explain the dent on the side of the truck; but I’ll give you five bucks if you don’t mention it to my husband.

This whole thought process took me back to a few years ago when I was making holiday candy. My husband came in from hog and sheep chores and became witness to the job it is to make the peanut butter balls. He watched me tediously dip them one or two at a time into the melted chocolate, let them drip, then carefully slide them with a knife onto the wax paper so they would look glossy and flawless. After a couple of minutes he informed me that if he were doing that job, he could get it done a lot faster.

My husband thrives on efficiency. For him, the challenge of bringing efficiency into the kitchen rested in how he could perform this job industrially so it wouldn’t take so long.

His effort was to place four or five of the balls into the chocolate, slop them around a bit to cover, then lift them out all at once with a large and wide slotted spoon, let them drip, then dump them onto the wax paper and scoot them apart. Candy scars showed everywhere.

No worries, I thought to myself. I did need the help; but if anyone asked about the way the peanut butter balls looked, I would just tell them our kids helped me with them.

I just wouldn’t tell them it was the biggest kid.

And so, slow and steady really does win the race — with holiday goodie preparation, just as it is with the harvest.

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