There are times when a farmer prays for rain; and a time when he prays for the opposite. Havest is one such time. He doesn't need wind, rain, or hail beating down his ripened wheat. Dry fields and dry grain are his heart's desire--the drier the harvested grain, the better his price per bushel. Believe me, there's nothing worse than a muddy field to totally bog down your impressively expensive combine and render it useless. The weather reports worried farmer Jon Olsen all through harvest. A number of predicted thunderstorms came through his area of the state and several of his neighbours' fields were hurt by wind and hail. Olsen's fields, though, came through each outbreak of storms completely whole. Even so, by the time he cut the very last of his remaining standing wheat, augered the grain from its bin into the back of his large farm truck, and turned off the engine of his combine, the skies were darkening rapidly to the southwest and the breeze, smelling of rain, had stiffened. Olsen and his youngest son covered the exposed load of wheat with a tarp and fastened it secure. Then his boy climbed into the cab and drove their last load to the local elevator. Olsen climbed into his pickup and honked several times and yelled for his dog, Bucky. Bucky, however, was over in the next pasture and focused upon chasing various rabbits and other critters. Neitherr Olsen's calls or the truck's horn registered upon Bucky. It took a large jab of lightning to get his attention. Bucky ran back to the parked combine, but by the time he got to it, Olsen had driven off. That he'd been abandoned didn't particularly bother Bucky. The farm buildings were only about three-quarters of a mile away. Not even slowing down, he passed the silent machine and loped for home. _______________________________________________ Dedicated to Linda because she gave me the EcoSystem with the Wheat stubble. Had this picture for quite a while now and was waiting to find the right lightning to put in the sky. Also, had originially wanted to make Bucky a coyote that was out hunting and had stopped to stare nervously at the "man-thing." Had the coyote and a wonderful skinmat to go with it, but couldn't ever get the skinmat to map correctly. (I'm not very good at figuring out such things anyway.) So I added the dog instead. I really like the atmosphere-mood of this piece. Hope you do too. Thanks for all your visits, comments, and support. Jeremy CREDITS: Vue Pro Studio 6, Poser 6. Dog is DAZ's Millennium Dog with the German Shepherd skinmat. Combine Harvester was redone for Poser by JHoagland from a De Espona Infografica model. EcoSystem: "Wheat stubble" by Linda Daireaux. Lightning: From RDNA Weather pack by Modualz.