06 Dec It all worked out for the best

Our harvest journey has ended after 178 days. We finished up our corn last week and got everything moved into the shed until we start doing repairs on them. We have had quite the fall harvest this year. The way things started we thought we would for surely be done by mid-October but of course the weather played a huge role in making us go another month. In that time, we did get more acres because of the weather and farmers wanting to be done as well so it worked out for the best.

Our fall harvest started around the middle of September combining beans in Donnybrook, Westhope, Willow City, Landa, Bowdon, Esmond, and around Jamestown, North Dakota. We covered a lot of ground as the beans were not running as they normally would due to the North Dakota drought. Some were averaging 14 while others were in the upper 40s. The weather this fall started of really good to let us move along quickly. I have never seen us combining beans in 96-degree weather before but I was not disappointed. We did have a few rain delays, some longer than others, but we were okay with that. We had around 3 inches of snow the first part of November but it has all melted as we are back at 40-to 45-degree weather. I am loving the nice weather and not having snow but we are really hoping to not have the winter we did last year. Once the weather finally decided to shape up, we did get a good week of getting everything finished up for all of our famers and most of our own crop. We did pull an all-nighter to get our corn off but we fell short by a few hours because of rain.

We combined corn in Grant, Nebraska, with A-Team Harvesting 2 this year and that was a first for us. Our fall harvest usually stays in North Dakota. We then moved that combine to Logan, Kansas, to combine milo with A-Team Harvesting 2 and back to Grant to finish the last of the irrigated corn.

We were short on employees this fall so that made for some challenging days but we made it through the year. At one point we had the remaining employees and seven Neumillers in equipment just to keep everything moving. We had a great harvest season and are anxiously awaiting the start of the next season.

We are very thankful for all of our employees this year and without them we could not do what we love to do. The remaining employees have been busy repairing equipment and trucks while the others have been out trucking. We have seven trucks out on the road right now hauling grain, cattle and sand. We stay busy during the winter months repairing the combines and getting them ready for the next season. The trucks will come home on weekends to have their maintenance done and get ready for the next week.

Kimberly Neumiller can be reached at kimberly@allaboardharvest.com.

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