Thursday morning I woke up, looked out the window and saw other trailers. For a brief moment, I had to search the ‘ole memory bank to remember where the heck we were. Oh…now I remember – Limon, CO. This is our 7th year in Limon. We won’t be cutting for the same farmers that we had for the past six. Their last harvest was last summer. They decided it was time to do something different for a while. As you may recall from earlier posts, when we left home over four weeks ago, we didn’t have a job lined up to replace this one. God is good! We’re working for a new farmer. New names to put with new faces. New adventures. New people to add to our Christmas list. Most of the people we work for end up becoming more than just a job!

This was taken on the last day of cutting in Garden City. Wolf elevator – my favorite one!

I wonder how long this has been hanging inside the elevator? (And I wonder if anyone followed these rules)

We were up early Wednesday morning to try to beat the heat. No luck. I believe it was the most humidity I had felt in a really long time. I had been up early to do a radio interview with Greg Akagi of WBIW Radio for his Kansas Ag Issues program. It was way too warm and muggy for my liking already at 5:45 a.m. I knew it was going to be a tough go at getting everything packed and loaded. We didn’t even have to do anything to work up a sweat. We got ‘er done, though, and were on the road by 8:30. A record for the Z Crew, I’m sure!

This is what the inside of the Cottage on Wheels looks like while we live in it.

This is what it looks like when the slides are in and we’re ready to head down the road.

Everything on the walls gets taken down and rides on our bed when we’re moving.

Our spot takes on a whole different feel when we pull away.

The trip was uneventful and probably one of my most enjoyable ever. Brice and Matt (aka “the boys”) repaired Frank’s air conditioning as best as they could considering the age of everything they had to work on. Matt told me it wouldn’t freeze me out but it would be cooler than I’d had. And that it was! Thanks, guys! I owe you more lasagna or something. The crops in the western section of Kansas are struggling – BIG TIME! I can’t even explain to you how sad it makes me feel for the farmers of this area. It’s the third year of VERY tough goings for them. If the crop isn’t under a pivot, it’s been sentenced to a slow, suffocating death. The extreme heat and lack of moisture is so evident everywhere. Tell ya what, farmers are amazing people! Their faith that next year will be better is the ONLY thing most have to hang onto. Their job of working the ground, planting the seed only to see their masterpiece struggle to survive has got to feel like defeat x 1,000. I salute all the American farmers struggling to make it work this year – from Texas to the Canadian border. When the farmer takes a beating, so does the custom harvester. With nothing to cut, there’s nothing for the harvester. We, unfortunately, don’t have a safety net to fall back on. Thank GOODNESS the farmer does! Without them, our industry would REALLY suffer.

This is a picture of the fishing lake we stayed at near Deerfield. The top picture was taken two years ago. The bottom one – only days ago. (Thanks for the picture, Callie)

How often can you say you’ve stood on the bottom of a lake?

Kansas dry land corn.

The taller, more healthy looking corn in the background is under an irrigation pivot.

This was supposed to be a farmer’s 2013 wheat crop – north of Tribune, KS.

The first trip included the Cottage on Wheels because Jamie, Curt & Eli were going to be joining us for a few days beginning the very next day. At least they’d have a place to come after getting off the plane in Denver that morning. The combine had been having computer issues while in Garden City and had been testing the guys who work the New Holland harvest support trailer. It was decided it would be left in Garden in hopes that someone would be able to figure out what was going on before we got to Limon and lost that support. Long story short, when it came time to replace the whole computer, a bent connection pin was found. Easy enough. Now, lets hope that solves the issue. It certainly had a few New Holland guys scratching their heads.

Later Thursday afternoon (after having a few hours of Eli time), Jim and Taylor headed back to Garden to get the Yellow Beast. They loaded early yesterday (Friday) morning and were back to the trailer by mid afternoon. Our day was spent inside the trailer house, under the air conditioning playing with Mr. Eli. I, unfortunately, had plenty of catch up to do with picking up mail that morning. Sorta wish I hadn’t even gone to the Post Office. For those of you wondering, we have our mail forwarded to each stop we are at. Did you know there’s still “general delivery”? I just have to call the post office at home before we leave one town and let Jean know where to send it next. Looks like the Yellow Beast will be part of a REAL harvest party. The farmer we’ll be working with has three green combines and even a tractor/grain cart. Whoo hoo! This is gonna be FUN! I’ll probably break my camera with all the pictures I’ll be taking. Now we’ll get something done!

The Yellow Beast sorta matches.

This particular field was very short. It suffered from the late season freezes and had been hailed on. It only yielded 6 bushels to the acre. However, the weight was 60 lbs. and protein was 13%.  Better than I expected! This field was over 400 acres. We finished it in hours what would have taken the Yellow Beast on it’s own – days.

We had a fairly large storm brew up near us but all we got was a sprinkle.

Guess who surprised us with her presence this morning.

Yep…Jenna. There was a knock on the door early this morning. As soon as that happens, Taylor & Callie scramble. They avoid answering the door, so I did:

Thanks for capturing the moment, Jen.