Christy: Bittersweet week

Well, we almost had our customers done around home. Paul got a call for help on one last quarter by Round Lake, Minnesota. We started that quarter today, and will get it done hopefully tomorrow. It’s hard to turn down extra work. We are, as before, still pretty short on help, but if it means putting our own crops off for a bit longer, it’s worth the wait.

Before moving back over to Round Lake, we squeezed in two of our own fields of corn. They did well. We hauled some over to our bins at our home, and some went to a local ethanol plant. The corn that made it to our bins is about 18% moisture. Paul plans to dry it down with just the use of the fans until we’re ready to haul it in.

We also started working ground. By Cloverdale, Iowa, Paul worked over where new tiling was placed this fall after soybeans were combined. One of our combine operators, Parker, took over working the last two fields we combined. He was able to cover ground quickly.

Jobs by Elkton and Watertown, South Dakota, are completed, and now Gary is taking the time to help us out with our own corn around Ivanhoe, Minnesota. That corn is being hauled to the elevator since it would be a pretty far trip hauling it all the way to our bins at home. We have done that in the past, but it’ll work out this year. It will also mean that there will be less to haul in over the winter.

Our crew out in Roscoe, South Dakota, still has some acres to cover, but hopefully they will wrap those up pretty soon. I think they are ready to be done out there. They don’t have a cook, so it sounds like when they return home they will be due a well-made, home cooked meal. We’ll make sure they get it.

It won’t be long now, maybe another week or so, and we will start the arduous task of retrieving all our equipment and bringing it back home. It’ll need to be cleaned up and stored away for winter. Campers will get cleaned out and winterized to be stored as well. All our combines will be brought back to Jaycox Implement in Worthington, Minnesota. We have new machines ordered for next year that will hopefully be ready for us to pick up from Grand Island, Nebraska, this winter.

This week has been bittersweet, though. It’s a great feeling to be close to the end of harvest, but not when you hear tragic news. There’s a lot of tragic news each day, but this news hit a little too close to home for me. A fellow harvester lost his life a few days ago in a farming accident. I didn’t know him personally, but he was young, with a very young family. I would like to say that all our thoughts and prayers are with him, and his family. #augersoutforbrad

Christy Paplow can be reached at christy@allaboardharvest.com.

All Aboard Fall Harvest is brought to you by Pivot Bio, Western Equipment, John Deere, Unverferth Manufacturing and US Custom Harvesters.

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