04 Jul Christy: Rain in western Kansas, a demo, and stitches

One of the trucks moving by before the campers jump in line during the move to Tribune, Kansas.

Tribune, Kansas—As we seem to do in Texas, we’re doing now in Kansas. We’ve brought the rain with us and while we’ve still been able to cut, it’s been pretty short days in the field. Rain and a little hail hit pretty hard as I was bringing supper out on our first day cutting. The pickup got muddy—and I mean caked many inches deep in places—so I decided after I got back I would wash it off in town at the local self-serve car wash. The owner was there cleaning up the stall after another person had washed all the concrete like mud from their vehicle. I asked apologetically if I could wash my really horribly dirty pickup, and to my surprise, he said, “Yes, I’m so glad to see the mud, because we needed this rain so bad.”

You can really see in the fields that rain has been scarce. Yields have been very low, but still worth cutting. Acres will be down at this stop, but I think we’ll make up for it down the road. We picked up a few acres in Colorado, and we will make our stop in Colby, Kansas, this year. Hopefully it will all balance out.

I do want to back up a bit and share a little more on a demo we did down in Pratt, Kansas. As I wrote in my last blog, a brand new Elmer’s 1300 HaulMaster cart was brought out to the field. And it was really impressive.

Elmer’s grain cart in the field by Pratt, Kansas.

This cart boasts many valuable features. It has the technology to be programmed for whatever you are loading into. With the push of a button, you can choose the type of grain trailer you are loading, and how much to load in each hopper. With the sound of an alarm, you’ll know when one hopper is full, and when to move to the next. It takes all the guesswork out of loading a perfectly portioned trailer. Not only that, but this cart also has a right-hand auger, affording the cart operator a much easier line of vision between the trailer they’re loading and the controls and monitors on your right side. Our cart operator asked me when I brought supper out if I brought my checkbook. I laughed and said no. He said he didn’t want to unhook the cart, and I don’t blame him after hearing all the new features this one has.

Back in Tribune, we had a little bit of an eventful trip up. Rhonada’s pickup went dead on her as we went through Ness City, Kansas. A nice couple of guys helped pull her off the road, and we left it there until we could get a pickup there to pull the camper back. After trying to change fuse, and popping three new fuses in a row, the pickup troubles were deeper than an easy fix. It was towed to Great Bend and they finally pulled the camper back to Tribune. Hopefully it can be fixed here pretty soon.

All the campers lined up waiting to join the convoy leaving Pratt, Kansas before pickup troubles struck. Finally had a cool move with temperatures only reaching 75 degrees.

Zoey helping the guys change a tire that blew while moving to Tribune, Kansas.

We ended our week with a visit to the ER. Zoey was baking pumpkin bars with Grandma when a pumpkin can lid got away from her. Five stitches later, we were on our way to get ice cream. It appears to be healing well so far, and even though Zoey’s bummed she won’t be able to go swimming for a while, she is pretty proud to show off her little blue stitches.

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

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Zoey at the emergency room in Tribune, Kansas. She was a trooper, and is already healing well.