01 Nov Christy: Checking off the customer list

Round Lake, Minnesota—Our two Round Lake, Minnesota, jobs have been completed, with the exception of a couple replants to clean up, as well as our Hartley customer. It is great to have these three jobs pretty much done, as they usually take up the majority of our fall schedule around home.

Tom running up to catch his supper by Round Lake, Minnesota. We’ll miss Tom when he’ll head back to England to get home.

With customers being pretty close to covered here by home, Paul sent four of the crew with us up to Elkton, South Dakota, to help Gary cover acres and hopefully get much closer to being done. Since that has left only Paul, a truck driver, and a cart operator here by home, I’m hoping to start working on clearing out the one crew camper here, and work on cleaning up the crew quarters attached to Gary’s shop. I will be happy to get in there as I’ve been running so much lately I haven’t had time to give our crew quarters a good cleaning and change bedding.
Out in Roscoe, South Dakota, our crew has been steadily chipping away at corn acres for a little over a week. It averaged overall this week 153 bushels per acre. The moisture has been dry, with the exception of one-half section of replanted corn that ended up being dried. All of this corn will be going to elevators, and a little to bins. They’ve still got a pretty good stretch to go before getting completed. According to Patrick, our crew leader in Roscoe, it’ll be a couple of weeks yet before they will be seeing the end.
Before getting finished by Round Lake, Minnesota, we caught a pretty neat sight that I’d never seen before. After a little research I discovered it’s a type of halo, either called a circular halo or 22-degree halo. They’re fairly common and even though it wasn’t particularly cold that day, it was an impressive sight. I have only ever witnessed sun dogs before, and the difference is that the circular halo goes all the way around the sun (or moon) and the sun dog looks like parentheses around the sun.

22 degree halo seen by Round Lake, Minnesota this week.

We have a farmer by Fulda, Minnesota, who we help when we can and Paul has moved over there now to help him get finished. The corn by Fulda is doing about 185 bushels per acre where tile hasn’t been put in, but the tiled farms have been doing upwards of 220 bushels per acre. Last night a pretty serious thunderstorm pulled through that area and dumped a decent amount of rain, so we’ll have to see if we will be able to get back into the field there later this afternoon or if we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Gary’s brother, Richard Paplow, getting his supper from the pickup while helping out in Fulda, Minnesota.

With a few crew members starting to head out back for home, we’ve needed a little help filling in the gaps. Gary’s brother, Richard Paplow, came to help us truck some this weekend, and it’s never a dull moment when he’s in the field. We’re grateful for the extra help here towards the end of season.

The sunsets have been absolutely stellar this fall.

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

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