Stephanus Schoeman, 28, walks to move a pickup truck so he can continue to service one of the farm’s cotton pickers before he and two other farmers harvest the remaining acreage on one of their fields. With one of two cotton pickers temporarily out of service, it could prove to be one of their longer days this season. 

Micheal Degenaar, 33, and Stephanus, fill out their weekly timecards in front of their boss’s office. Tomorrow is pay day, and they plan to road trip to Memphis, Tenn., to explore a new city. 

Micheal walks to help a farmer clear some field debris from their soybean combine so it can continue to operate smoothly. Accumulation of dirt and debris can reduce the efficiency of a combine’s ability to turn up crops, or stop it from doing so entirely. 

Stephanus removes sludge that has collected in the heads of the cotton picker before regreasing its nipples in order to prepare for the day of harvesting that lie ahead. Stephanus is married, and sends a vast majority of his income back to South Africa to help out his wife and save money for the family they intend to start. He makes nearly twice as much money working in the United States as he could working a similar job in his home country of South Africa. 

Micheal wrestles the soybean combine in order to shake loose one of its belts so he can clear out the accumulation of earth that lies beneath before returning to work the field. Micheal and his roommate Stephanus arrived in Kennet from South Africa just three weeks ago.

Shielding his eyes from the sun, Micheal takes a short break to eat the supper that his boss’s wife brought for the farmers and field hands. On longer harvest days, Micheal and Stephanus, eat their supper in the field. 

The farmers and their farm hands eat supper around one of their trucks after a belt on one of their cotton pickers caught fire, torching a bale of cotton that had to be tossed into the field. They doused it with their water wagon to prevent the fire from spreading further into the field and destroying additional crop. 

Stephanus focuses on his work during golden hour one evening. He drives drives a tractor that hauls the baled cotton from the field, and aligns the bales in rows of four.

Stephanus drives his tractor in the field just after sunset. With a 100% chance of rain in the weather forecast for the following day, the farmers and their hands, Stephanus and Micheal, will work through the night until the rain arrives in order to maximize their take. 

Micheal and Stephanus have breakfast in the living room of their shared two-bedroom apartment before heading to work in the fields.