Till Harvest Do We Part……
That line comes from a goofy conversation we were having on Sunday about killing your wife through harvest labor while we were on the second leg of grain shoveling in the hot, relentless, humid, summer heat.
Harvest was insane this year. I learned a few lessons, got some lucky breaks, and some not so lucky ones as well.
I took off Friday from work, as the weather had been dry, hot and sunny on Wednesday and Thursday, and the forecast was for thunderstorms all weekend. Dad, Mom, and Joe had a free day since they weren’t leaving for Minnesota till Saturday morning, so they came to help as well.
I arrived at the farm at 9am. Dad arrived shortly after, and we got some equipment moved around, the tires aired up on the combine, and he went on a fuel run for me. We then got the combine fired up after a few tries, and moved it down to the garage for its servicing. 100 grease joints later, I was covered head to toe in grease, and the chains were all oiled up, belts dressed, and the combine was ready to hit the field. We ate a lunch of fried chicken, poppy seed coleslaw, and vegetable salad that my wonderful wife got for everyone.
After lunch, I fired up the combine and headed for the field. When I got to the creek crossing, I found out that the header wouldn’t clear the far bank and it tried to get stuck. I wound up killing it three times while making it hop like a bunny rabbit trying to climb backwards out of the crossing, but I got it out. I ran down like a mad man, and sent Mom and Amanda to fetch Dad with the tractor and the blade so we could grade out the crossing a few times. After helping him hook up, he re-graded the crossing for me, and I successfully got the combine through. This should have been a warning for what was to come.
I got into the field and started combining about 1:30pm. For those wondering why so late, you can’t combine in the morning anyway, since you have to wait for the dew to cook off the crops, or you will pull too much moisture in with the grain, and it can cause the grain to rot, as well as being docked at the grainery for excessive moisture. The wheat has to be no higher than 14% moisture, or they will take some serious money off your crop.
The harvest went pretty smoothly for most of the day, filling the dump trailer to the hilt. I’m estimating I got about 10,xxx lbs or so for the 10 acre field. It was clean, and weed-free, but it was a light yield due to not having the money to fertilize again this spring, and planting it so late in October last year. It is still a nice crop, nonetheless, especially considering it was saved seed from the year prior. Seed expense = $0.
We did a battery change about 5pm, and I kept right on working, finishing the harvest about 8:30pm or so. The barn swallows love the combine, and they would swirl around me as I was kicking up the bugs in the field. Some of them would fly right by my face. Its pretty magickal to be harvesting wheat, with not a cloud in a deep blue sky, and a wonderful breeze, all the while a huge flock of 30 or so barn swallows are swirling around you all day long. Also, the deer came out in droves in the valley. I had two come less than 40 yards from the combine that evening, and I counted 19 deer that evening in groups around us.
When I finished the field, I drove the combine back to the barn and parked it in the yard. I walked back, and started to try and drive the fully loaded trailer back across the creek crossing. I got stuck in the creek and as hard as we tried, we just couldn’t get the trailer free. I had the tractor front end 4 ft off the ground, another tractor pulling on me in front, and my 4x4 pulling on that tractor and I still couldn’t get it to budge. I called Terry, and he came down with his truck and tried pulling it out as well. We eventually bent the hitch on the tractor, and ripped the receiver off the back of Terry’s truck trying to get the trailer out. We gave up at about 12:30am, and tarped the trailer down for the night. Dad and Joe had to get home to finish packing to leave for Minnesota in the morning.
Saturday was spent getting a new receiver for Terry’s truck, torching the old one off, and putting the new one on….Jim and his Dad came over, and we shoveled about a ton of grain out of the dump trailer into my grain trailer as a thunderstorm was blowing up right towards us. We quit, got the dump trailer tarped over again, and got the grain trailer in the barn with 3 minutes to spare before the rain came. It felt like a horribly wasted day.
Sunday we got up early, had breakfast, and then headed to the farm. After a brief rain shower that morning, and finding out that the due to the rain that night (1 3/5 inches), the creek had risen 4 inches and then come back down. It was just enough to get the back corner of the trailer wet, which soaked into the grain. (We later found out it was only about 15 bushels that got wet). We tried a few more heroic attempts to get the trailer out with the tractor and the truck, which of course failed. At which point, I went and got the grain trailer and backed it back up to the dump trailer. Terry, Amanda, and I hand shoveled about 6500 lbs of grain out of the dump trailer into the grain trailer, and I was able to get both of them back to the barn. We were finally out of the creek!! The sun was out, and it was incredibly humid, with almost no wind. Fun!
We were able to get the 15 bushels out of the back and spread it out onto 2 tarps to dry in the sun, while we hand shoveled about 4500 lbs of grain back into the dump trailer. It was during the second leg of shoveling, while we were dying in the heat, that we started joking about farmer’s wives taking a special vow of marriage, and the line “Till Harvest Do We Part” came about. Amanda impressed me so much with how she handled helping out. My poor wife helped me shovel about 10,000 lbs of grain in the hot, humid heat this weekend, and she should get a medal for being so awesome. (As I write this, she is still at home sleeping, and probably not going to move much today!)
Terry left, and while we were cooling down, my in-laws came over. We had lunch with Grandma, and then they helped us transfer a little bit more grain to the grain trailer. I am keeping about a ton or so for seed for next year, as well as seeing if I can sell some to a few local bakeries, and at the farmer’s market.
I got both trailers back into the barn, the combine and the seed drill tarped down, and we headed home for showers and dinner about 7pm. It was a long weekend! The grain in the dump trailer is dry and will go to the grainery on Wednesday, and I have some finishing work to do, but the wheat harvest is done!
Lessons for next year: Have your exit strategy down pat before you start. I am going to use the grain trailer for field loading from now on, as it has 4 wheels and can only hold about 6,xxx lbs of grain. I need to buy an auger and 4 cheap tires for it, but it will make the harvest go a lot smoother. It has an incredible amount of clearance (about the same as a tall truck) and it can go through all the crossings with ease, without trying to flip the tractor when its fully loaded. I’ll save some money, and be on the lookout for a few farm auctions this fall to see if I can find a good used auger somewhere for a reasonable price.
Other farm related news: The family was weeding the tomato patch on Friday, and we have actual tomatoes popping out on the vines all over the place! The first 300 heirloom plants should be producing ripe tomatoes before the end of July! I can’t wait to see how these sell at the farmers market and the restaurants! Also, the blackberries are ripening up and should be ready for harvest in a week or two. We are leaving to go to Minnesota over the weekend of the 4th, I need to go see my grandpa one last time before he passes. He’s 90 and they just found a large cancerous tumor on his colon and his liver, so he has only a few months left. The weekend of the 9th is the straw baling weekend, and I need to catch up on the weeding this week, and when it finally dries out, get the compost tea spread among the tomatoes that have finished flowering, so they can get a large shot of nutrients to start producing more tomatoes like crazy.
It’s an insanely busy and crazy summer. But I love it! Between getting to share this with Amanda, and doing all this work feels so rewarding. I wouldn’t trade this for anything…..
Harvest was insane this year. I learned a few lessons, got some lucky breaks, and some not so lucky ones as well.
I took off Friday from work, as the weather had been dry, hot and sunny on Wednesday and Thursday, and the forecast was for thunderstorms all weekend. Dad, Mom, and Joe had a free day since they weren’t leaving for Minnesota till Saturday morning, so they came to help as well.
I arrived at the farm at 9am. Dad arrived shortly after, and we got some equipment moved around, the tires aired up on the combine, and he went on a fuel run for me. We then got the combine fired up after a few tries, and moved it down to the garage for its servicing. 100 grease joints later, I was covered head to toe in grease, and the chains were all oiled up, belts dressed, and the combine was ready to hit the field. We ate a lunch of fried chicken, poppy seed coleslaw, and vegetable salad that my wonderful wife got for everyone.
After lunch, I fired up the combine and headed for the field. When I got to the creek crossing, I found out that the header wouldn’t clear the far bank and it tried to get stuck. I wound up killing it three times while making it hop like a bunny rabbit trying to climb backwards out of the crossing, but I got it out. I ran down like a mad man, and sent Mom and Amanda to fetch Dad with the tractor and the blade so we could grade out the crossing a few times. After helping him hook up, he re-graded the crossing for me, and I successfully got the combine through. This should have been a warning for what was to come.
I got into the field and started combining about 1:30pm. For those wondering why so late, you can’t combine in the morning anyway, since you have to wait for the dew to cook off the crops, or you will pull too much moisture in with the grain, and it can cause the grain to rot, as well as being docked at the grainery for excessive moisture. The wheat has to be no higher than 14% moisture, or they will take some serious money off your crop.
The harvest went pretty smoothly for most of the day, filling the dump trailer to the hilt. I’m estimating I got about 10,xxx lbs or so for the 10 acre field. It was clean, and weed-free, but it was a light yield due to not having the money to fertilize again this spring, and planting it so late in October last year. It is still a nice crop, nonetheless, especially considering it was saved seed from the year prior. Seed expense = $0.
We did a battery change about 5pm, and I kept right on working, finishing the harvest about 8:30pm or so. The barn swallows love the combine, and they would swirl around me as I was kicking up the bugs in the field. Some of them would fly right by my face. Its pretty magickal to be harvesting wheat, with not a cloud in a deep blue sky, and a wonderful breeze, all the while a huge flock of 30 or so barn swallows are swirling around you all day long. Also, the deer came out in droves in the valley. I had two come less than 40 yards from the combine that evening, and I counted 19 deer that evening in groups around us.
When I finished the field, I drove the combine back to the barn and parked it in the yard. I walked back, and started to try and drive the fully loaded trailer back across the creek crossing. I got stuck in the creek and as hard as we tried, we just couldn’t get the trailer free. I had the tractor front end 4 ft off the ground, another tractor pulling on me in front, and my 4x4 pulling on that tractor and I still couldn’t get it to budge. I called Terry, and he came down with his truck and tried pulling it out as well. We eventually bent the hitch on the tractor, and ripped the receiver off the back of Terry’s truck trying to get the trailer out. We gave up at about 12:30am, and tarped the trailer down for the night. Dad and Joe had to get home to finish packing to leave for Minnesota in the morning.
Saturday was spent getting a new receiver for Terry’s truck, torching the old one off, and putting the new one on….Jim and his Dad came over, and we shoveled about a ton of grain out of the dump trailer into my grain trailer as a thunderstorm was blowing up right towards us. We quit, got the dump trailer tarped over again, and got the grain trailer in the barn with 3 minutes to spare before the rain came. It felt like a horribly wasted day.
Sunday we got up early, had breakfast, and then headed to the farm. After a brief rain shower that morning, and finding out that the due to the rain that night (1 3/5 inches), the creek had risen 4 inches and then come back down. It was just enough to get the back corner of the trailer wet, which soaked into the grain. (We later found out it was only about 15 bushels that got wet). We tried a few more heroic attempts to get the trailer out with the tractor and the truck, which of course failed. At which point, I went and got the grain trailer and backed it back up to the dump trailer. Terry, Amanda, and I hand shoveled about 6500 lbs of grain out of the dump trailer into the grain trailer, and I was able to get both of them back to the barn. We were finally out of the creek!! The sun was out, and it was incredibly humid, with almost no wind. Fun!
We were able to get the 15 bushels out of the back and spread it out onto 2 tarps to dry in the sun, while we hand shoveled about 4500 lbs of grain back into the dump trailer. It was during the second leg of shoveling, while we were dying in the heat, that we started joking about farmer’s wives taking a special vow of marriage, and the line “Till Harvest Do We Part” came about. Amanda impressed me so much with how she handled helping out. My poor wife helped me shovel about 10,000 lbs of grain in the hot, humid heat this weekend, and she should get a medal for being so awesome. (As I write this, she is still at home sleeping, and probably not going to move much today!)
Terry left, and while we were cooling down, my in-laws came over. We had lunch with Grandma, and then they helped us transfer a little bit more grain to the grain trailer. I am keeping about a ton or so for seed for next year, as well as seeing if I can sell some to a few local bakeries, and at the farmer’s market.
I got both trailers back into the barn, the combine and the seed drill tarped down, and we headed home for showers and dinner about 7pm. It was a long weekend! The grain in the dump trailer is dry and will go to the grainery on Wednesday, and I have some finishing work to do, but the wheat harvest is done!
Lessons for next year: Have your exit strategy down pat before you start. I am going to use the grain trailer for field loading from now on, as it has 4 wheels and can only hold about 6,xxx lbs of grain. I need to buy an auger and 4 cheap tires for it, but it will make the harvest go a lot smoother. It has an incredible amount of clearance (about the same as a tall truck) and it can go through all the crossings with ease, without trying to flip the tractor when its fully loaded. I’ll save some money, and be on the lookout for a few farm auctions this fall to see if I can find a good used auger somewhere for a reasonable price.
Other farm related news: The family was weeding the tomato patch on Friday, and we have actual tomatoes popping out on the vines all over the place! The first 300 heirloom plants should be producing ripe tomatoes before the end of July! I can’t wait to see how these sell at the farmers market and the restaurants! Also, the blackberries are ripening up and should be ready for harvest in a week or two. We are leaving to go to Minnesota over the weekend of the 4th, I need to go see my grandpa one last time before he passes. He’s 90 and they just found a large cancerous tumor on his colon and his liver, so he has only a few months left. The weekend of the 9th is the straw baling weekend, and I need to catch up on the weeding this week, and when it finally dries out, get the compost tea spread among the tomatoes that have finished flowering, so they can get a large shot of nutrients to start producing more tomatoes like crazy.
It’s an insanely busy and crazy summer. But I love it! Between getting to share this with Amanda, and doing all this work feels so rewarding. I wouldn’t trade this for anything…..