The fall harvest continues, with the dusty coming and going of combines, trucks and trailers and tractors along our gravel road. All of the soybeans around us are in, while the corn to the south of us remains for now.

Various birds began migrating over our area just a few weeks ago. I was reading a news article recently that said most fly south beginning shortly after dusk and continue during the evening hours. It said birds flying across Iowa include thrushes, warblers, flycatchers, sparrows, eastern wood-peewee, American redstart, magnolia warbler and more. I have only seen and heard geese flying over our area so far this fall.

One night recently I was sitting at the dinning room table when I heard some insistent, constant barking outside the open kitchen window. I walked to the backdoor and stepped out on the porch. The barking was coming from not too far off in the darkness of the freshly harvested soybean field to our east. The barking paused for a moment, followed by a long howl, then more barking. A coyote. This continued unabated for a good five minutes as I stood there listening. There were no replies to what seemed to be an urgent plea for attention from the animal. I could not see it the darkness, but I could tell it was not moving. Finally, I went back into the house to continue what I had been doing, but I could still hear the coyote barking and howling through the kitchen window for another half an hour. The next day it was gone, with no sign it had ever been there.

The fireflies are almost all gone by now, replaced by the grasshoppers, which are about full-grown and hopping around everywhere. This has also been a bounty year for dragonflies around the acreage.

Some soybean crops around us have started to turn yellow-gold, while other patches are still green, making for a beautiful mosaic stretching into the distance. Our vegetable garden has been so-so again this year, producing a few zucchinis early and some cherry tomatoes later in the season. No green peppers.

I wrote recently about our dog Steve acquiring a taste for baby bunnies. Last week he expanded his diet even further by eating a baby bird whole that had fallen to the ground. My son and I were working out back when we both heard loud and excited baby bird chirps. We looked around and spotted Steve under a pine tree, his mouth to the ground. The chirps grew fainter then stopped when he began chewing something. Up went his head, followed by a big gulp. If he is going for a trifecta I can only guess what the next baby animal would be.