29 May Janel: Moving South

On the road—We left home—Holdrege, Nebraska—early this morning. I am hauling my combine and header. Today is May 23 and I just checked the forecast for where we’re going in southwest Oklahoma and it’s not too good for 10 days. It looks like it’ll be the usual June 1 start and will be awfully muddy.

Our luck has been down recently. We lost a combine on May 17 due to a horrible wreck. I’ve never seen anything like it and don’t understand it. It’s always been amazing to me how drivers slow down or even pull off the road when they see our harvest crew coming down the road. I’ve always felt pretty safe hauling wide loads especially when other courteous drivers are so generous in giving us our space. Now I’m even more cautious. I drive truck five days a week during the off-season and it really bothers me when drivers crowd the center line or even cross it. I’ve always been taught to crowd the white line. It’s absolutely all about safety.

I have time to write this because our old Chevy pickup just broke down. It was smoking out the exhaust and the driver said they heard a knocking noise and now it’s going back to Holdrege to get worked on. Bad luck.

My precious Maggie Moo passed away yesterday around 4 p.m. She was 14 and the best dog ever. She loved harvest and always enjoyed all of her rides. I think the combine was her favorite. She had over 10,000 combine hours and was a pro. She loved Peterbilt rides too and surely had at least 100,000 miles maybe more. She was always so fun to be around and today I’m missing her like crazy. She was one-of-a-kind in every way and I don’t think there will ever be another quite like her. She was a sweetheart and now a total heartbreaker. She brought joy and love to my life and kept me company all day every day. Now I’m lonely without Miss Maggie Moo but very thankful I got 14 wonderful years with her.

This is my second trip south in a week. The first trip I hauled the tractor grain cart. We had troubles that day too. We had to go 80 miles out of our way to get around the wreck. There wasn’t good looking wheat anywhere. There’s a lot of sorry crops from Nebraska to Texas. I hope we have enough work to keep us busy. Please travel safely everybody and good luck.

Janel Schemper can be reached at janel@allaboardharvest.com.

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