13 Dec Kimberly: The snow has arrived

Winter has arrived here in North Dakota. They were anticipating a big storm to hit our area so they called school off Thursday and, boy, did we get snow. I have heard anywhere from 14 inches to 16.5 inches. We spent most of the day at the farm doing year end paperwork and the cousins all had a great time with each other on their day off. We didn’t have school Friday because of Veteran’s Day so Bentley and Kyler finally got to get the snowmobiles out of the shed and hit the snow. I didn’t realize how much snow we had until the next morning when it was finally done snowing and blowing and the sun was shining, but I can admit I am not ready for winter. The guys spent most of the day moving snow between our four houses and the shop. Thankfully its light and fluffy this time so it’s an easy move compared to when we have the wet and heavy snow but the ground wasn’t frozen so they made a little mess.

CCurrently we have five employees who are trucking and Roger, Mychal, Cole and Logan have been busy getting all the equipment squared away and taking notes on what needs to be done with each one. Renee, Karlie, Danica and myself got all the campers done and stored in their winter homes and hauled all the “camper food” to the shop.
Since our fall harvest ended prior to Halloween not much has changed around here other than snow, snow and more snow. We have one combine in the shop right now but it is not ours. We are helping out a neighbor by completely rebuilding the inside of his combine and making sure it is ready for the next harvest season. Once we are done with it and the holidays are over, we will slowly start bringing our combines in and start going through them. Roughly 165 days until we are back out on the road and heading south.

The cab window in our combines get a little crowded in the fall with four monitors on the right window. We have our PIPE AG iPad, the pro 700 monitor, our farmers iPad with field view, and the monitor for the Geringhoff corn header. Our PIPE AG iPad helps us see where our trucks are, how full the grain cart is, helps trucks navigate to the next field and helps keep track of the loads going to the elevator and the bin. The iPad with the field view is allowing our farmer to be able to incorporate the yield data into their spring fertilizer spreading so they know which part of the field will need to have more fertilizer or less. It also gives the farmer and instant field average so he knows how is field is running while we are still cutting. The Geringhoff monitor tells the deck plate placement, RPMs, header speed and controls the reel.

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

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