Emma: Livin’ the Farm Life

These next couple of weeks the Misener crew will be working on the Price Farm near Dell Rapids, South Dakota. We’ll be here until fall harvest begins—and it’s right around the corner.

Folks up here are also suffering from drought, but no matter what the crop is it’s early this year. I hope we have a good crop this fall, but all we can do is hope for the best. We are finding ourselves in the same predicament that many harvesters find themselves in this time of year—needing work. The drought may make work hard to come by as it has threatened fall harvest. We’ll just have to put our faith in God.

August has left the crew because school starts up for him soon. He’s really become part of our family and we hope to have him back soon. Any time he wants to come back he is more than welcome!

August

Beingon the Price farm is like a mini vacation. They are not only our fall customers, but our friends. I just love being here and waking up in the morning to the sweet sounds of a farm. I absolutely love it.

Dan and I start to gather the sheep
We rounded up the sheep. Of course they all ran for cover, and guess who was nominated to go in after them? That’s right. Me. (Although, I found it kind of fun!)

Dan, Dave and I round up the sheep
Dan and farmer Dave carried gate panels to get a wider sweep on herding the sheep.

Dave, Dan and I
I’m not even sure why I was giving mom this look, but it’s pretty funny.

The shot lady!
Mom had one of the most important jobs. She filled the syringes with correct amount of dosage for each sheep.

Catching sheep is not something I do every day, so I thought this was fun. Farmer Dave, though was laughing at my excitement. He was happy for the extra help and said it cut his time in half.

Dan, farmer Dave and I
This picture just makes me laugh. Dan’s expression, Dave laughing, and me doing something that looks embarrassing. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but evidently something didn’t smell too sweet.

Once the sheep were caught it was time to fix and build fence.

Dave tightens the fence

Mom and Dan Load up the 4-wheeler with fence posts
Dan and Mom loaded up the fence posts onto the back of the 4-wheeler. My job was the insulators. I didn’t get a photo of the fence at the end, but just picture a perfectly straight fence.

Dan and Andy (farmer Dave’s son), and I went to check soybeans and corn. They had sprayed the previous week and they wanted to check to make sure the spider mites were gone. If you don’t get these spider mites under control when you first see them it could mean a total loss of your crop. Luckily, there were no mites found during our inspection.
Dan and Andy walking the soybeans

Soybeans still in bloom

Butterfly
There were thousands of these tiny creatures just hanging out. I think he’s gorgeous.

Soybeans!

Difference in the height of the Soybeans
Andy holds up the difference in the height of the soybeans from the edge of the field, to where the draws or waterways are in the fields. You can definitely tell which plant is getting more water.

Dan and Andy walk the edge of the corn
We then headed over and checked out the corn.

Andy checking the ears
Andy opens up an ear of corn to see what it looks like. Luckily the Price farm looks to have a promising crop.

My family and I may not be doing the typical jobs expected during this time of year we’re making do with what we have. Surround yourself with those you love and enjoy the special gift of life God has given us. Don’t waste it.

Be safe and God bless!

All Aboard Wheat Harvest is sponsored by High Plains Journal and Syngenta
Emma Misener can be reached at emma@allaboardharvest.com

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