Before we began our day yesterday, we had 100 acres left to cut. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the last 30 due to extreme high moisture and green straw. In some parts of the field, it was like mowing grass.

In this last field, there were several of these nests. The picture doesn’t show the intricate craftsmanship of weaving the nest making materials around the stem of the wheat. This is so well built, even the header didn’t destroy it. Does anyone know what kind of bird would have built this?

This is looking down at the nest.

Most of yesterday was spent trying to blend the dry wheat with the green. This worked for a while but the moisture began creeping up. The elevator would take it up to 14.5% without dockage. Anything beyond that would cost the farmer money. The last blended load tested 15.2%. It was at that time we decided we just couldn’t make it work anymore. I was cutting wheat that was showing moisture as high as 25% and as low as 8%. Our farmer will finish the job when it’s ripe enough to cut. This morning was spent cleaning the combine and header. Jim did maintenance work to the trucks in the afternoon and the girls and I tried to help whenever, however we could. The girls were rewarded with their favorite fast food for lunch – McDonalds. It was a PERFECT day to be working outside. Not much wind to blow the dirt in your face and the extreme heat took a short vacation.

Taylor and Callie having fun before the work began.

This shows the wheat chaff and dirt that needed to be cleaned out of the header.

We’ve got one air hose/nozzle and one leaf blower – Taylor had the leaf blower and Jim had the air hose. Callie and I worked on digging out the wheat straw and dirt.

“Oh, Callie, your eyes are closed in this picture” “Yeah, I know, I did it on purpose”.

I can remember a time the headers didn’t have any sort of safety locking device on it. So, if it started to fall you better hope no one or nothing was under it. The machines today have devices that lock the header up with no chance of falling on anyone. Still a little scary working under the header – even with the safety device in place.

Fun in McDonalds

It’s time to be heading north. Limon is very close to being ready to cut (quite possibly as soon as we get there). Tomorrow is supposed to begin a run of several days of high heat – 100+. It’ll make for a treacherous move both days that it will take us to get everything a little further north. Jim put new tires on the header trailer so, hopefully, we won’t be dealing with flat tires for a while.

Again, I have to continue to remind myself that it’s the 21^st of June – not July 10^th. For the last several years, we’ve spent July 4^th in Deerfield. While we’ve been here, the girls have sort of adopted a pair of pups that live near the RV park. They’re pretty friendly dogs and Taylor and Callie have had fun playing with them when they come for a visit. The thin female looks like a coyote. The darker one is a male and much heavier and fluffier. Their eyes are BEAUTIFUL – blue like a husky. It certainly makes us wish we had another dog to love and have around.

We’re going to attempt an early start tomorrow (it takes us forever to pull camp). The first load will involve the trailer house/Pete combo, the dually/service truck combo and the “Nasty”. We’ve been warned it will be early to try to avoid the heat…