This year as I found myself waiting on the combine during the soybean harvest, I was amused by many a rip-snorting hilarious Facebook video touting the struggle of the average grain cart operator. I think the word is out, and grain cart operators are uniting for justice.

Some of the videos left me laughing right out loud in the solitude of the tractor cab. It’s weird laughing alone. But I also figure no one will come after me with a white jacket if they don’t hear me laughing in outrageous volumes when I’m the only one in the audience.

This year I was both amused and surprised to discover that I used up all 10 of my fingers as I tallied up how long I’ve been sitting behind the steering wheel of the grain cart tractor.

While it doesn’t seem as frightening now as it once did, you’d think I’d be better at it than I am by now. I still have a hard time out-guessing my husband as to where he’ll go next, while those who slide into the tractor seat after me seem to instinctively know his next move.

You will not want me in charge of the war department.

But in 10 years of this servitude, I have also made a few observations.

• The language of the harvest is typical of husbands and wives working together. You may hear, “You need to come closer to me.” Or, “You need to get away from me.”

Frankly, on some bad days working together, we’re happy to oblige the “get away from me” order as we try to pass off our knitted eyebrows as some kind of byproduct of harvest constipation.

• We often hear, “You’re loaded.” In certain circles, that statement could either land you in jail or in a lavish home in the Fiji Islands. But you might know that all it gets us here in the heartland is a trip to the truck to unload.

It’s just my luck.

• Turkey vultures do a certain amount of scouting. I’m not sure if there are dead animals lying in the fence lines or if I need a harder-working deodorant, but either way it’s a little unnerving to think they might be flying overhead to size me up for lunch.

By the way, it’s also a little hard on my ego that more turkey vultures have checked me out over the years than prospective husbands.

• The play list on some radio stations is about as long as the finger I use to change the dial. The person in an ag cab might opt to bring a guitar, just to stir things up a bit.

• School buses are a stroke of refreshing color in a land of dead foliage and billowing dust. Still, for the harvest worker, a school bus sighting reminds us that they were going to be our only experience of riding in anything remotely close to a stretch limo.

And yet, we emerged emotionally unscathed from such a reality.

• Women are more and more involved in the ag experience. I see them driving corn choppers, combines, grain carts, trucks, hay rakes, balers and manure spreaders. They’re operating field cultivators, weighing trucks and wagons at the elevator, meeting with farmers to buy/contract grain and fertilizer, fixing machinery, caring for and moving livestock around and so much more. While I still feel like agriculture is primarily a “man’s world,” the women are closing ranks — so buckle up, boys.

Finally, it’s the breathtaking sunsets that help make this job so enjoyable. We have to wait all day long for them, but they are worth the wait. They also speak of important life lessons — such as, don’t miss the sunsets in life — those people and things that bring us great joy. The most beautiful of creations (human or otherwise) sometimes come and go without noise or fanfare, and can be easily overlooked.

Don’t let that happen.

It’s taken me 10 years of thumbing through the grain cart operator manual to figure out these important things.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford. She can be reached at kjschwaller@outlook.com. Note new email address.