Harvest Time

For the past two weeks, we've been on harvest time, a time when no one on the farm looks at a clock or a calendar.  Is it Wednesday?  Or did that day rush by in a blur of churning combine wheels?

Zenith elevator in the background

Time during wheat harvest is calculated by the rising and the setting of the sun.  "You're wasting daylight" says my dad whenever the focus of any crew member shifts to the non-essentials.  Sometimes even the sunset has little to do with quitting time.  "Can we finish this patch tonight before the thunderstorm moves in?"  Working in the dark with only the headlights on the combine and grain cart tractor to light the way is not the preferred method of operation but needs must when the devil drives.

Miles

(By the way, that's a figure of speech and not a reference to my nephew Miles who skillfully steered the combine through yet another wheat harvest.  Thanks, Miles, for joining us again this year!)

Of course, no one complained about a little rain.  The drought in Kansas has made any rainfall precious.  Luckily for us, those extra hours after dark were enough to finish our final field of wheat.

Tim and Miles

However, that's not to say that everything went smoothly through this harvest.  Greasing and oiling the combine in preparation for pulling into the first plot of wheat revealed a crack in the rear axle.  All that jolting last fall during corn and soybean harvest over the deep ruts left by the wheels of the pivot systems had taken its toll.  And wouldn't you know it!  The only dealer for a replacement axle was two and a half hours away.  Still, we can't complain.  A friend of ours tried to start his combine only to discover that a raccoon had used the machine for a winter home.  It might have been okay if only the little bandit hadn't snacked on the combine's fan and belts.  That delayed Randy's start by several days.

Then there was the little hole in the grain bin pipe.  How could such a small opening spew such a mess!

Since I was on Walinga duty when it happened, I was the one to clean it up with a scoop shovel.

Can you see the tiny hole that caused all my problems?  The green contraption in the background is the Walinga.

Note to the uninitiated:  The Walinga is a vacuum attached to the dump pit that sucks the grain up to the top to fill the grain bin.  Someone (me!) has to keep an eye on it so such problems don't occur.

Derek setting the pipe on top of the grain bin

If I had to evaluate the job execution of the rest of the crew, I'd say each gave a stellar performance.

Derek inside the grain cart tractor

Derek, my nephew, handled the grain cart like a pro, especially during those tricky times of dumping-on-the-go.  Time after time he pulled carefully alongside the combine keeping a steady speed as Miles emptied its bin.

Tim opening the semi's hatch

My husband Tim and my brother Jon shuttled the two semi-trucks back and forth from the field to the farm and even further afar to fill wheat contracts at Scoular, a grain elevator near Pratt.

Jon

In the photo above, Jon is taking the time to set up the capture for the seed grain bin.

Finally, Dad kept the pivot systems running over the corn and soybean crops and offered his mechanical expertise to keep all the machinery going.

Dad

Even my sister-in-law Rhonda and I received rave reviews for our noon meals and sandwich suppers in the field.

But there was a missing member in our family's harvest crew.  This was the first harvest without my mom who died last December.  I think I almost missed her more this month than I did during the initial months following her passing.  She loved the frantic pace of wheat harvest when the family pulled together to do the job.  Every time I slapped together the sandwiches for supper, I missed her stirring up the lemonade we'd always carted to the field.  Yet despite the hole left by her death, once again the teamwork was a family affair.

And somehow the time seemed to rush by!

Heading Home

St. Charles' historic railroad depot is adjacent to Katy Trail.

This is one last post before Tim and I land at the farm where wheat harvest is gearing up and time will be limited.  We spent the last two nights camped at St. Charles on the banks of the Missouri River just 25 miles northwest of St. Louis, Missouri.  By walking through the gate at the rear of our campground, we could saunter a quarter-mile along the Katy Trail (a hiking/bicycling trail that transects the state of Missouri) to the historic downtown of St. Charles, Missouri.  This was the first permanent European settlement on the Missouri River.  It was the final embarkation point for the Louis and Clark Expedition for it was here on May 16, 1804, that the Corps of Discovery camped at St. Charles, a traders' outpost, the last European civilization they saw until they returned from their expedition two years later.  

Bella Vino Wine Bar

The historic downtown evokes the bustle of that trading outpost with its quaint shops and trendy restaurants.  We rarely eat dinner out when it's just the two of us, but we couldn't resist a chance to try the tapas at Bella Vino Wine Bar.  Calamari on a bed of flash-fried spinach; Portobello mushrooms stuffed with spinach, feta cheese and kalamata olives; cheese fondue set alight by our waiter and accompanied by torn pieces of artisan bread left little room for us to try the restaurant's signature St. Louis Gooey Cake, but we couldn't resist.  Oh, my, was that delicious! 

We also made time to visit the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis.  We've seen Grant's Tomb in New York City and his home in Galena, Illinois where he formed a regiment of soldiers at the beginning of the Civil War, but we'd never stopped at White Haven, the farm where he met his wife, Julia Dent.  

I think White Haven is a misnomer, but the park ranger said this lime green color was very similar to the underlying paint  of the house's exterior.

Grant's roommate at West Point was Fred Dent, Julia's oldest brother.  Upon graduation, these two friends were assigned to Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis.  Fred often invited Grant to visit his home.  There Grant met Fred's sister Julia whom he courted with letters while he was away fighting in the Mexican-American War.  They married in 1848 and for a time, they lived with her family at White Haven.  

Behind the house is the slaves' domain: the kitchen and the room where laundry was done.

Grant's relationship with Julia's father, a slaveholder, was a difficult one.  While not a fervent abolitionist (Grant at one time did own a slave, William Jones, whom he freed in 1859), he was against slavery.  Yet, even Julia felt that there was nothing wrong in owning slaves.  So there was tension in Grant's familial relationships.

A lot has been written about the failures Grant experienced in his life.  Indeed, he was not able to make a profit raising horses while he lived at White Haven and he relocated his family from Hardscrabble, the unprofitable farm he once owned near his father-in-law, to find work in his brother's tannery in Galena, Illinois.  But perhaps it simply took him awhile to find his niche.  However, no one can deny that if it wasn't for Ulysses S. Grant, the Union could not have won the Civil War as soon as it did.

With our visit to this historic site of Ulysses S. Grant, we've now visited 58 National Park Service properties since we began our full-time RV life in January 2016.  Considering that there are 417 properties in total, I guess we still have a ways to go!  However, adding any more sites to our collection of memories will have to put on hold.  Duty calls!

Note:  Tim and I arrived back on the farm June 1st and it's been a whirlwind ever since.  Farmwork has sucked us into its vortex as everyone prepares for the juggernaut of wheat harvest.  This afternoon my 87-year-old father pulled the combine into the field and lowered the header almost to the ground before setting the cutting bar into motion.  The stalks of wheat are very short this year due to the ongoing drought.  In fact, the National Weather Service has reported that this was the driest winter in western Kansas since they began tracking in 1874.  So, we'll see how it shells out.

"Who plants a seed beneath the sod and waits to see, believes in God." ~ Anonymous