140/365 Corn tassels

When I talk to my mom, or anyone else who grew up in a farming area more than 30 years ago, they always talk about one particularly miserable summer/fall job: detasseling corn.

The farmers needed help, and the teenagers needed money, so they dressed in their long sleeves and helped detassel fields of corn. Through a little Googling, I've found that it was seen often as a rite of passage and one of those awful jobs that your parents tell you "build character" (blech). One guy even calls it "the worst job he ever had."

Thank goodness for modern machinery and scientific advancement, because I've never been unfortunate enough to have to do it. I don't think Chase has, either, even with all of the time he's spent working on farms during that part of the growing season.

I always picture teenagers detasseling corn when I see the fields at this time of year, and it makes all the paper cuts I got working a summer job in the records department at Farm Bureau Insurance not seem quite so bad.

Camera: Canon 40D with 60mm macro lens, 1/400s, f/2.8 at ISO 100 in direct sunlight at about 8:00 p.m.