not just gleaned, virtually recycled

when i first wandered down the post-harvest rows in the cornfield by the supermarket in december...

i found considerable amounts of dense yellow #2 that the harvester had missed ( i believe the usda estimate tool gave me a total somewhere over three bushels and acre )...

when i wen t back in january ( thirty-six days ago ) i found far fewer ears with kernels still attached...gleaners had been at work...

today i found geese on the hoof ( wing? ) whose brethren may have helped in the gleaning...

an abundance of empty cobs ( six pounds of nitrogen per ton as they decompose...and they decompose slowly )

and what seem to be the freeze-dried runt kernels at the ends of some of the cobs...rejected even by the gleaners and, presumably, left to bacteria and mold to digest...so...in a matter of three months or so the mis-harvested corn has vanished...recycled back into the food chain by hungry wildlife...since this "grain" is artificially selected to be mostly starch and as little protein as possible one wonders how much nutritional value the gleaners found here...probably not more than humans do once the feed stock has been processed by industrial food...whatever the case the corn has been consumed to what extent it will be, i think...time to bring on the 2018 bean crop.