Along towards noon, when the sun is high over head and the heat becomes noticeable, the men end their labors. Some of them trot back down to the cave for a late breakfast. Others, whose fields are farther from the town, have brought their lunches and they spend the warm midday hours in the shade of the trees which border their fields. These men have a deep, inborn love for farming. They are descended from a thousand years of successful farmers and a fanatical desire to make things grow is in their blood. They often go to the fields when there is nothing to be done. The weeds have been cut, the soil is well loosened, everything is just right. Still the men go to the fields to spend the hours among the growing things. Every hill of corn, every bean plant receives individual attention. Endlessly the men work about the fields, even though they only pick an occasional bug off the plants. During the midday siesta the men often gather in little groups and while away the hours telling of crops of the past or dreaming of the harvest that is to come. Those hours are not always spent idly for there are many tasks the men can do as they sit in the shade. One man may chip arrowheads; another may whittle away on his new bow. Here a man is patching his sandals while his neighbor puts a new blade on his digging stick. Much can be accomplished during these hours when the sun is high and the shade is welcome. The fields are never left without watchers. All day long someone is on guard and even during the night the young men and boys take turns watching the precious crops. Rabbits and squirrels eat the beans, and ravens and crows pull up the tender young corn plants. In a few hours a field can be ruined. Later on in the summer, crows, jays and ravens will tear at the ears of corn and eat great holes in the tender squashes. Even the coyotes like the squashes and as one of the animals trots through the field he may take great bites out of half a dozen. Faced with this danger, the farmers are forced to watch the fields day and night. The unmarried boys build brush shelters in the fields and spend much of the summer there, dreaming of the chubby little maidens for whom they will soon be farming. [Illustration: Modern Indian corn grown by ancient methods in the Mesa Verde experimental field] [Illustration: Remains of terraces which provided garden plots for the early farmers] The boys do not like to spend the night in the fields for witches are most active during the hours of darkness and it is a bad time to be away from the town. When a coyote howls or an owl hoots, they know it may be a witch so they throw more wood on their fires and smear ashes on their foreheads to keep the witches away.