“That’s the last of the big machinery,” the foreman said.

He handed the clipboard back and climbed into the cab of his truck.

The exhaust pipe let out a dark cloud of soot.

I watched the three huge trucks pull onto the county road and turn south.

Their red taillights faded into the thick morning fog.

The eighty acres of Fay farm were completely silent for the first time in twenty years.

By noon, the sun had burned off the fog and was baking the wooden planks of the farm office.