29 May Lindsey: May Madness

A beautiful western Oklahoma sunset!

Cheyenne, Oklahoma–How are we already on the backside of May? I’m Lindsey Orgain with Orgain Harvesting in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. This will be my husband, Jason, and my 14th year on the harvest trail. We have known the end of our custom harvesting days was approaching. We have focused on expanding our farm operation at home, and thankfully we have been fortunate enough to add acres in the last couple of years. That makes being on the road for six months out of the year very difficult, expensive and stressful. One evening Jason told me, “I’m just tired of always being in a hurry,” and I could not agree more! Our oldest child, Mason, just finished his first year of school and our youngest, Ivy, is already 2 years old. It’s crazy how quickly these precious years are flying by! Jason and I are both ready to stay closer to home and transition to a full-time farming operation. As a result, our wheat harvest run is going to look quite different this year. We anticipate cutting in Oklahoma and Kansas, and then we will likely make our way back home.

Photo Credit: Lia Hillman Media Fall 2018 Cotton

Mason on his last day of Pre-K.

In the meantime, we are trying our best to make it all happen at home. We know it’s coming. It happens every year. But somehow the month of May always seems to hit us like a ton of bricks! This May has been no exception. The to-do list is growing by the day. The weather isn’t doing much to help us out either. I know here in western Oklahoma we’re usually praying, dancing, begging or doing whatever we can think of to make it rain at this point in the year. That certainly hasn’t been a problem this spring—just as soon as things start to dry out, it seems we are hit with another round of showers and storms. As a result, our planting schedule has been delayed and some of the wheat that we intended to swath and bale has become too mature to do so. Thankfully, we are faithful people—as farmers, how could you not be? We’ve made the most of our downtime with combine and truck maintenance and trying our best to get in some quality family time—which is usually hard to come by this time of the year. Another plus:The landscape is so pretty and green right now. It’s absolutely beautiful. A year ago we were waking up every morning with the fear of wildfires, so this has been a welcome change!

Swathing wheat hay in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.

Photo by Lindsey Orgain.

Photo by Lindsey Orgain.

Sunset from the air seeder.

We are looking to fire up the combines around the middle of June. I’m excited to share our journey with you this summer! I’ll keep you updated on the crop conditions we encounter as well as sharing a little more behind the scenes stuff. There are definitely a lot of working parts to the harvest machine. All that lies between us and wheat harvest is planting and seeding about 3,000 acres and swathing and baling another 500 acres. No big deal … ha!

Mason and Ivy.

Supervising Dad.

All Aboard Wheat Harvest is sponsored by High Plains Journal and John Deere. Lindsey can be reached at lindsey@allaboardharvest.com.