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!

Grounded

Grounded isn't just a word that applies to discipline for teenage misdemeanors or airplanes prohibited from flying.  It could also mean someone or something that is stable and well-established.

Our farmhouse, circa 1912, was built with the front entrance overlooking the road.
The porch was a perfect place for family photos.

In 1951 my parents moved in and changed the front entrance so it faces the driveway.

It's still a great place to capture a family photo.

I think this word is the perfect descriptor for my family farm, a place where my roots run deep despite my years of marriage to a city boy.  This is the place where I feel grounded in familial love and the faith of my forefathers.

My great-grandfather, Everett E. Gard, threshes wheat.
He'd be amazed at the 40-foot header on today's combine.

Established by my paternal great-grandfather in 1903, our farm qualified for the Kansas Farm Bureau's Century Farm Award, a program that recognizes family farms whose current owner is related to the owner of the farm in 1917 or before.  Qualifying farmers receive a farm sign designating "Century Farm" status and recognition from Kansas Farm Bureau, an advocacy organization for agriculture.  But, true to form, the sign, still in its cardboard box, languishes on the back porch, waiting its day in the sun or at least the half hour of down time it would take to stake it out by the road.  Indeed, that might never happen at all if my dad decides that, just as a fellow farmer present at the awards banquet mentioned, it would attract local gun-toters to use it as target practice.

My brother Jon fills the planter with wheat seed.

Is there a time on the farm that qualifies as down time?  That certainly hasn't happened in the past seven weeks Tim and I have camped here, helping my brother and father harvest corn and soybeans all the while trying to plant wheat.

It's been hectic, especially since I've tried to spend an hour or so every afternoon with my mom who's in a local assisted living situation.  So it might seem Tim and I have dropped off the face of the earth; we've been so out of touch with the world.  But one's focus narrows during fall harvest to getting the grain in the bin or planted in the ground.  I guess we've been grounded on the farm, so to speak.  But as of this morning, we are back on the road again, bound for another Habitat for Humanity build in Mandeville, LA.

I have few harvest photos to show for our time and many of the few I did take were of knobs, dials and parts of various pieces of farm implements and tools.  These I sent to my brother Jon to ask if this was the part he wanted or the switch I should turn on or off.  Cell phone photos sent via text messages are a huge step up from rudimentary drawings quickly sketched on a napkin at the dinner table.

I'm simply thankful that those knobs, dials and switches were firmly grounded--another use of this word--so the return path of the electric current bypassed me and I could greet another dawn, praising God for the gift of a new day.

Home for Harvest

Tim and I have spent the last four weeks on the family farm in Kansas helping with wheat harvest. 

Now I know how the astronauts felt when they were out of communication with Houston while they traveled around the dark side of the moon.  Not that Kansas is the dark side, but lately our lives have been too hectic to blog or participate in social media.  We've been out of touch.

In fact, wheat harvest is a lot like a tsunami.  It picks you up, pulls you under, and spits you out hopefully on shore once it's over.

Emily, Brad, Hanna, Mark, Julia and Matt

But before harvest began, there was a family wedding,

Tim, Cindy, Phyllis, Willard, Becky, Doug and Miles

a family reunion,

Mary, Matthew, Mom and I

and a trip to the zoo with my college friend Mary and her grandson Matthew.

Tim, Derek and Miles

Then it began!  Wheat harvest is a team effort.  It is an intense time when one eye is on the weather and the other on the steering wheel of whatever implement you are driving 

Nephew Miles

be it the combine, 

Nephew Derek

the grain cart, 

Tim

the semi trucks,

Dad

the tractor, 

Mom and I

the pickup pulling the fertilizer tank necessary to keep the irrigation systems supplied,  (Are these the right levers to turn, Jon?)  

Jon

or the ATV for the management to use.

Derek and Chet

Even the farm dog Chet got in on the action.

The goal is to get the wheat cut before a thunderstorm delivers hail that could wipe out the crop.  

We did have a hail storm that straphed a few fields but we were lucky.  The damage was minimal.

In point of fact, this harvest produced better than expected results.  Last fall my dad picked up a fist full of dirt and said he'd never seen it so dry.  It was nothing more than dust.  But this spring timely rains arrived just as the wheat heads were beginning to fill.  Astoundingly, one of our non-irrigated fields which typically produced 35 to 40 bushels, yielded 65 bushels to the acre.

Dad, Derek, Miles and Tim (Jon, not pictured)

On the morning after the hailstorm, a corporate meeting of McClure Farms employees occurred on the back porch.  I wish I could report that stockholders would receive a dividend this year, but that is still to be determined when fall harvest rolls around.

Dad

My 86-year-old father has driven the combine for 67 years now.  I don't think we could have kept him out of the cab even if we'd tried.  

Dad at the end of his shift

Miles took the helm whenever dad grew tired but my father still put in an eight-hour day.

Derek

Harvest ended last Monday, June 26th, but not knowing when the end would come, Tim and I factored in an extra week's stay.  I needed that time to decompress and set the farmhouse in order, doing tasks that my mother can no longer accomplish.

We left the farm this morning so I have no excuse for setting this blog aside any longer.

Goodbye, Kansas!

Highlights From Wheat Harvest

Normally I take a ton of photos during wheat harvest on my family's farm in Kansas. But I guess this year I had other priorities, mainly the care of my mom who suffers from dementia.

My dad is her chief caregiver during the rest of the year, but the lure of driving the combine during harvest was too tempting for him. So I took on that role as well as my usual duties of chief cook & bottle washer and unofficial documentary photographer. I hardly fulfilled that last task.

Still, there were a few photo ops like sandwich suppers in the field, 

down times when the coolest place was underneath the grain cart,

stops to repair the combine,

connections made at the top of the grain bins,

and the semi dumped

once pipe connections are tight.

There were also lulls after thunderstorms rolled through,

times to congregate on the back porch

and discuss what fields to try next.

Times when one generation sees another 

step forward to assume responsibility. 

Of course, there was drama, too!

A grain bin pipe burst and dumped 300 bushels of wheat on the ground. 

Naturally, this happened at the end of a long day

when predictions of thunderstorms

added a sense of urgency to the clean-up. 

Still, we were fortunate.

As the sun set on our last day of cutting,

we received word that a neighbor needed help. 

So my nephew moved our combine to their field to help them finish, too. 

As the moon rose in the sky, we were grateful to have our wheat safely in the bin.

Tim and I are traveling to the Badlands of South Dakota today. Last night we stayed at a campground on the outskirts of North Platte, Nebraska. Tornado sirens split the night as we crowded into the campground's cinder block laundry facilities. Luckily, no funnels were sighted.

 Only dramatic clouds that whirled across the sky!