Memory Monday: Crop Circles in Area 51

The summer after Jonathan and I got married Jonathan worked as the student manager for BYU-Idaho's farm.  We only had one car at the time so I would drive him to and from work and bring him lunch.  Occasionally I'd ride along with him in the buddy seat of the tractor when I brought him his sack lunch.  It didn't take me long to pick favorite fields.  There was the field behind the university's married student housing.  It was planted mostly in alfalfa and partly in a peas and oats mixture.  It wasn't a favorite.  That was THE bumpiest field to ride along in when he was swathing.  Jonathan always laughed about how much I struggled to stay centered safely on that seat.  I always remarked that my seat didn't have a cushiony air-ride system and he should try riding on the buddy seat!  He always came back with "I have" so that pretty much killed my argument.  If my memory serves me correctly, this is also the same field that Jonathan swathed a skunk in.  As in, the-skunk-went-all-the-way-through-the-swather-as-well-as-its-stench, swathed a skunk.  The swather smelled of skunk for days!

Then there was the field southwest of the arboretum.  It was my favorite because a red fox and her kits could always be spotted in the pivot tracks.  It was fun to watch her head pop up and down as we drove past; it was adjacent to the main farm road so we drove past it often on the way to the other fields.  It was planted in wheat so I didn't really get to ride along with him until harvest.  I think it was also the same field that his boss accidentally locked him out of the combine while it was running, without a spare key, but that's a story for some other time.  This is also the field that some paranormal activity took place in, which is the funniest memory from that whole summer.  So you can see why this particular field was my favorite.

The wheat was still green, but had headed out and was nearing ripening.  Some times when wheat gets to this point it falls over from its own weight.  As Jonathan drove down the main farm road and noticed a few large patches of wheat that had fallen down he assumed that's what had happened.  Until he looked a little closer; the stems were broken and something else had manually pushed the grain down.

Imagine my surprise when he called me and told me there were crop circles in the wheat field by the arboretum.  I, of course, wanted to see them immediately.  They were by no means extravagant, in fact they were very amateur appearing and were obviously formed by some students instead of anything paranormal (Not that I believe in that sort of stuff, though my mom was born is Roswell near the real Area 51 and we tease her about being an alien).  

Not very many students even knew the school farm existed, but there were a few who did.  Unfortunately, the ones who did, usually used its secluded-from-campus location for devious activities like sunbathing in bikinis (if shorts aren't allowed on campus, I'm pretty sure bikinis are frowned upon), burning text books in the fire pit, and apparently trying their hand at forming crop circles.

There were two circles and each was roughly the size of a queen mattress; we tried to give the vandals the benefit of the doubt that they didn't actually use a mattress to form the crop circles.  If they had, we were pretty sure they were breaking the honor code in ways much more severe than vandalism.

The monetary loss of the wheat wasn't very significant and it would be difficult to find who had caused the damage; however, it was decided that the incident should still be reported to the university police so that they could watch the area a little more closely.

"Hi, what can we do for you?"  The receptionist asked.

Jonathan and I laughed and looked at each other, wondering where to begin.  "We need to report some vandalism." Jonathan replied.

"Okay, what was damaged?" she urged.

"Some of the wheat on the school farm...It looks like someone tried to make crop circles in it."

There were four or five other employees standing behind her who were in ear shot of our conversation.  At that point of the conversation they all jerked their focus away from what they were doing and redirected it to our conversation.

In order to record the crime, the university police needed to file it under the campus code that the crime took place it.  No other crimes had been reported on the farm, so the correct code wasn't already in their computer system.

"What area is the farm in?"  One of the workers asked the others as he started to flip through a three ring binder.

"I think it's area 59." Another replied.

"No, 59 is something else." Another argued.

"I'll laugh if it's in area 51." The receptionist quipped.

The worker who was flipping through the three ring binder came to a map of the campus codes and broke out into a full laugh.  "It is in area 51!"

And so the crime was recorded, "Crop circles in area 51."