Yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of our Nation’s independence. I hope you did something fun and traditional.
I sent this picture to A Kansas Farm Mom after she challenged those of us in agriculture, “If you or your family is spending the holiday producing food for others, share a picture on this page. Happy Fourth of JULY!”
I began my day with sweat pants and a sweatshirt. (and sprinkles) It was July 2nd, for crying out loud!
I think it was well after noon when I finally decided the Cottage was warm enough I could put my shorts on. Who would have ever guessed? Just one more for the crazy weather of summer wheat harvest 2014!
Due to the early morning moisture and cool, cloudy conditions, there wasn’t any wheat cut. Jim did try it but it was over 15%. And that was later in the day.
So, how did we spend our day? Well, first off, Jenna showed up!! Woo hoo!! It’ll be so good to have her around for a few days. The time will go fast – it always does. I find myself thinking about different events that have happened within the past couple of years and I just can’t believe how crazy fast the times go. I hope there is something that comes from all these events and happenings because when I reflect, I think about the reasons and the purpose of being here at this exact time. I pray that what I’m doing is the reason I was placed right here, right now. Will I have done all that I was supposed to? Did I teach my kids all they should know to survive this crazy world? Will I be allowed to be a large part of my grandkids’ life? So many crazy things I find myself thinking about that I never even would have considered several years ago. Guess this comes with age, right?
It was sprinkling when we woke up this morning.
We had an additional .25 of an inch of rain last night. As I said in my last post, it came down at a nice slow pace. Not like the past several storms where the sky turned black and green and very angry with rain and hail pounding the ground. It was a relaxing rain. The day was so not like SW Kansas on July 1. We are typically faced with extreme heat and wind. So much wind you wish you could just cover your ears and make it go away (lalalalalala).
I remember one summer in particular staying in the farmer’s yard near Anthony, Kansas. The electricity wasn’t enough to pull the air conditioner in the trailer house so we had to endure the heat and the wind with the windows open. At that time, I had little kids and I wasn’t the “hired man”. I was the cook. Have you ever cooked in a trailer house that’s about 150 degrees already? And the wind just howled. I felt like I was going to go out of my mind. This one afternoon, I just closed up the windows and turned on that air conditioner just to get a break from the wind. I didn’t win the battle. The breaker clicked and I had to open the windows and endure. Until you’ve listened to wind howl like that, you can’t judge my decision. 🙂 Continue reading
As I’m typing this, the pitter patter of rain is hitting the Cottage roof and I can hear thunder every once in awhile.
We were able to finally get started after lunch today. It had been over a week since the first storm rolled in. Today we cut on a piece that was under a pivot but wasn’t yielding as well as we had hoped. It certainly wasn’t the typical irrigated wheat yields for this area. I’m guessing the late season freezes probably had something to do with that. And…it didn’t help that it had hail pounding it a couple of nights ago. There were broken heads laying on the ground and wheat that had shattered. It looked like it was only going to make about 15 bushels per acre. The quality was still really good – over 60 pound test weight. Just not very much of it.
Yes, you read that right. More rain. It came down in sheets starting just before midnight on Friday night (6/27). Jim was watching the radar and kept me posted how it looked. “Whelp, it looks like it’s raining at the combine but it looks like we won’t get anything here. It’s headed Northeast”. Then he fell asleep on the couch and it began to rain. Well, first I noticed the intense lightning that kept flashing through the closed shades. So I went to the door and realized the storm was headed directly for us.
This was on the side panel of the New Holland demo combine.
I slept in this morning. Why not? Nothing was pushing me to get out of bed.
It was a brand new morning! The events of yesterday were the first thing I thought about but a little easier to accept.
It was a beautiful morning so I decided to grab my fishing pole and go down to the pond for a little while. I stood by the edge and watched two rather large trout swim in front of me. They were taunting me, as if to say they knew I wouldn’t be able to catch them. Watching them reminded me of a recurring dream that I’ve had. In the dream, I’m always standing on the edge of a lake (more like a cliff) looking down in the water and the water is so clear. So clear, I can see the fish swimming around. Anyone out there know what the meaning of that dream could be?
I was reminded today just how fast something can change.
This morning, we noticed Bub (the cat) was out of the dog pen. We figured he was small enough to go through the fence but he hadn’t figured that out – until this morning. I had done all I could to plug each gaping hole along the sides of the pen with anything that would work. I was told the dog could be locked in the pen but how fair was that? We were the visitors. Why should he have to do something out of the ordinary?
So, I quickly scooped him up before the dog saw him, took him back to the pen and closed up any hole that looked like may have been big enough for him to get through. And then I saw it – he went right through the fence. Well, this was a problem. How in the world would I keep him in now? My only hope was that he would kick into survival mode if that dog spotted him and began the chase.
We had just poured some coffee and was “fixing” to have a cinnamon roll when I heard it – Bub’s cry. I went outside to see what was going on only to witness him in the dog’s mouth. I rescued him but it was too late. It’s been a rough day! If you haven’t been following my blog for long, you may not know about Bub. He was rescued by a neighbor and brought to my house when he was about 2 weeks old. I bottle fed him and fell in love with him. There’s a picture of him in my last post, “just tinkering”.
Look who made the trip and is keeping me company til the girls get here. Isn’t he growing!!
One thing is certain with harvest – nothing is certain!
I had an idea when we left home we may be sitting for a little while before we did any cutting. That appears to be the story. Our farmer has a combine. To make the situation a little easier to understand, our farmer also has a Shelbourne Stripper Head (to see what I’m talking about, click here to view a Shelbourne Head) and uses it to cover his dry land wheat. The stripper head removes only the head of wheat and leaves the straw. It does exactly what it sounds like it does…it strips the head from the plant. These headers are very popular in this part of Kansas because the straw that’s left will help catch any snow that may happen to fall. And in this “desert”, any moisture received is precious. He has us cut the wheat under the irrigation pivots because it reduces the amount of straw. Typically, irrigated wheat will grow much better than dry land – due to the amount of water that can be applied to the wheat as it’s growing. Too much straw affects planting next year’s crop.
I denied it as long as I could.
I knew I would have to step out of the “real” world and enter the “harvest” world eventually. That day seemed like maybe it just wasn’t going to happen. With the drought and late season freezes, the Z Crew wasn’t in any hurry to get anywhere. The farmers that we had lined acres up with in TX and OK had zeroed them out. And why would we load up and take off hoping to find something this year? I’m usually the one to encourage doing something new and different but even I didn’t feel like it was something we should do. So, I didn’t put up a fight when Jim said we’d just wait for SW Kansas and hope for acres there.
The combine left last week. Jim and Taylor got it to its destination, unloaded it and turned right around and came back. They were home the day after they left. Taylor said the wheat was green but Jim said, “we’ll be leaving with the rest of the stuff on Tuesday morning”. There it was. The date of departure. Departure from the “real” world. If you’re not a “wheatie”, I don’t think you can truly understand what it’s like to go through your house and start gathering EVERYTHING you might need for the 100+ days of being away from home. It’s overwhelming (to say the least)! So, I kept denying until Sunday afternoon rolled around. After the B-17 plane ride, I had to just tell myself I MUST get busy. Jim was being pretty insistent that Tuesday morning was the day. So, I began. I began with the basement and worked my way upstairs – to the kitchen, bathroom and finally my personal belongings. Continue reading