Enjoying the Hour

I’ve been home most of the day, and got a little restless toward evening. So, about 7 o-clock I hopped (figuratively, I’m sure) into the pickup and took a drive in the country. I went down to 55th street south, then west far enough to go into Kingman County (barely), then north a little and back to Wichita via 31st street south.
There are some things I noticed that I will include here in no particular order. First, it’s dry. The roads raised a lot of dust in the rearview mirror, and one did not want to follow someone else very closely. Farmers are stripping their fields, in preparation for the windy conditions to come tomorrow and Monday. Stripping a field keeps the topsoil from blowing nearly as badly as it would if it were smooth and not worked.
Corn has been harvested, but wheat has not been planted to any great extent. Sometimes farmers will plant wheat in August in order to have good pasture, etc. I suspect that following the next rain, assuming it comes in a week or two, a lot of wheat will be planted very quickly.
Several farmers have spread lime and fertilizer on their fields already. Some have the lime in a pile, but haven’t spread it yet. Farm work never ends.
Just before sundown, as I drove into the small valleys where the creeks and draws were, I noticed a cooling of the air. I had the window open, the radio and air conditioner off, and was enjoying the outdoors. There was, I would say, upwards of an 8 to 10 degree change from the normal height into the “bottoms”. The wind was still, allowing the cooler air to settle in those low areas.
One lone deer was in a bean field. I was a little disappointed I didn’t see more. I did see a few quail run across the road. Haven’t seen them in quite a while.
The railroad runs to Garden Plain. I had thought that line was abandoned long ago when the bridge washed out over Cowskin Creek at Kellogg and Maize in Wichita. However, the portion of that line from Garden Plain to Kingman is in service, albeit on an as-needed basis, it looks like. Probably mostly in the spring and fall harvests. The line terminates about 500 feet east of the section line road on the east side of Garden Plain. That would be one line I’d love to ride some day. The scenery would be great, I would think, as it cuts through sections of land, crosses rivers and streams, and is far from well-traveled roads.
It’s a different world out there. People you don’t know wave in that typical rural fashion. In case you don’t know what that is, you put your hand on top of the steering wheel, and when someone passes you, you either raise your hand a bit, or your first finger to acknowledge them. Everyone has a signature wave. If you are a true rural resident, you can many times tell who it is just by their wave. You’re an “unfriendly” or a “foreigner” if you don’t wave.
There are a lot of people who have built a lot of really nice homes on acreage out there. There are older farmsteads, but they seem to be declining in numbers, and groups of developments are there, sometimes several miles from the city. One thing that is also true, however, is that the developments are not far from a paved road.
I enjoyed the hour I spent in Western Sedgwick County.