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!