15 Jul Steph: Gummy worms

Bridgeport, Nebraska – Just as I was letting off the clutch at a stoplight in town, a motorcycle revved the ever living out of his motor and sped by me. I about had a heart attack — hearing noises like that, all I could think was that I blew something somewhere on my truck. I mean, I am hauling 64 pound wheat, so anything is possible.

It is pretty rare to have two stops on the harvest run that are a mere 27.5 miles away from each other. Obvious reasons being that they are both likely ready at the same time; and as we all know, the wheat waits for nobody. But, contrary to the norm, we moved from Gurley to Bridgeport without missing a beat. Farmer Don has some pretty spectacular wheat with test weights anywhere from 62-65 pounds, 35-40 bushel, and protein peaked at 13 for content, but is consistently between 8-10. Harvest days are coming and going and definitely running together these past 10 days or so. This time of year just works that way. It’s harvest autopilot, if you will. You just do because you know you need to do, and that’s all there is to it.

The other day, I was sitting in my truck cab for the full 10 minutes I sit idle before heading back to the elevator (60-mile round trips will do that to a trucker), and I was enjoying some sour gummy worms. Matt in the grain cart not only filled my truck up, but I see him hop out of the tractor and tarp my truck for me as well. He saunters around the side of my truck with this goofy grin on his face, hops up on my step and cups his hands together at me. A hand full of gummy worms in exchange for a tarped truck — not a bad trade-off.

Cabover Alert UPDATE:
C&K Harvesting – 37.5
Anderson Harvesting – 49
MacDon Harvest Support – 38

Quote of the Day – “Cows, camo and combines. We just solved all the world’s problems.”

Stuff Harvesters Do – Put your kids in school somewhere along the harvest run if you aren’t back in your hometown when that first bell rings.

Windmill love.

Wildflower love.

Bluffs around Scottsbluff area.

Dumping at West Plains in Gering, Nebraska.

Unreal protein content!

Ray right on the Mountain Dew truck.

Cute little waterfall on the side of the road.

Farmer Don.

Beautiful skyline.

Dusk action.

Fenceline.

Wildflower love.

They were begging me to take their photo, I swear.

Coming down the hill.

A quick turn-around and back in the wheat.

Those colors… gorgeous.

Charlene and Bob, coming to check progress.

I might have to frame this one.

Night lights.

Cart first, then truck. Cart records are important around here.