Emma: So What’s the Plan?

Well, we are living up to the Custom Harvesters name by flying by the seat of our pants and going with the flow of things. I bet God gets a good laugh at what all of us think we’re doing. I’m sure he thinks “these people think they know my plan, but let’s throw them this curve and see what happens.”God’s curve was more rain.

As I’ve said in my previous posts, it keeps chasing us day after day.Yesterday was interesting. We fixed the shaft the broke on the head, we did our regular service work on the machines and were ready to hit the field when the rain hit. It only rained for about an hour and then the sun came shining through. The combination of sunshine and gusty wind dried out the wheat enough to cut in just three hours. The moisture was around 15 percent when we started, and I’m sure you’re thinking that 15 was too wet, and I suppose you’re right – but the farmer we’re cutting for said that if we could thrash it through the combine and the elevator would take it, he wanted to cut it. So we cut.

This is one of those times where we are thankful to run walker machines, so we can cut the wet, green tinted straw. If we were to run a rotary combine I’m not so sure we would have cut yesterday because it would be tough getting it through the machine.

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Joel and I servicing the combines. We’re fueling and Thad is greasing somewhere.

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Little Elizabeth enjoying her ‘play time’ in the field while we service the machines.

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Some of the wheat we cut that was around 15 percent moisture.

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As you can see, it is stacking pretty good. When I say stacking, it means that the pile of wheat is a greater angle than normal because it’s so wet. This is about a 45 degree angle. Normally it’s around a 25 to 30 degree angle. You should be able to see the green wheat, and how they are puffy looking.

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We cut late again last night for fear of rain in the west. As soon as we parked our machines for the night it started raining again. It poured for about an hour and then sprinkled for another three or four. This means a late start, but with the sunshine and warm south wind the wheat drying rapidly.

We’re hoping to start cutting around two o’clock, or at least sample so we know where we are at. This is where the phrase, “so what’s the plan?” comes in. In order to be a harvester it takes tremendous patience and great faith in God. We just have to adapt and be ready when the wheat is ready.

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I don’t think that I put a whole lot of night pictures up, so I thought you’d like to see some.

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Me unloading on the go with Joel in the tractor. Night pictures are always hard to take, but I think they’re really interesting!

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My combine at night. Getting ready to shut down because it’s getting tough.

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The picture is kind of dark, but the lightning was getting closer, and we had just finished up harvesting.

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One of our semi’s heading back to park it where it’ll be dry. I was lucky enough to capture the lightning! If you can see, on the right is that elevator you see in the photo in the beginning of this post.

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This picture is probably one of my favorites so far of the 2011 wheat harvest. Makes me proud of the work that I do!

Be safe and God bless!

Emma can be reached at emma@allaboardharvest.com. All Aboard 2011 is sponsored by High Plains Journal and DuPont Crop Protection.

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