10 Jul Christy: Unfortunate Events

Brewster, Kansas — We have made the move to Brewster, Kansas, just west of Colby. We decided to park campers here so we would be a little closer to the fields we’re in just south of town.

We are stripping wheat here in Brewster, and the wheat is yielding well, anywhere between 40 and 70 bushels per acre. The weather was fairly good until a couple of days ago when one of those pop-up thunderstorms hit and struck the field with lightning. The field caught fire and burned around two acres before it could be extinguished. The storm was so strong it also knocked down power line poles, and the power went out at the bin site we were hauling to. Incredibly enough, Paul said the crew could have continued combining if the power hadn’t gone out. We’re very thankful no one was hurt, and no equipment was damaged.

We’ve made a lot of moves this last week. Patrick finished up in Texas and moved up to help Gary’s crew in Tribune. Tribune saw a wide range in quality and yields this year. Drought has played a large factor in production. Yields this year were as little as only 5 bushels per acre, with some fields as good as 40 bushels per acre. Gary finished up there in record time with great weather for combining and has now moved on to Paxton, Nebraska.

Patrick moved his crew up to Colby, Kansas, about 15 minutes to the east of where Paul and I are parked. He got started straight cutting with drapers right away and saw good yields, but the down side was battling a lot of joint grass. It, unfortunately, caused the loads to the elevator to be heavily docked. Since our farmer provides supper to Paul’s crew in Brewster, I’ve been running supper over to Patrick’s crew in Colby.

The weather has been good this year with very few rain delays. We are getting a few more showers now, but it’s a welcome sight for a break.

As we look to finish up here in Brewster soon, we will head up to Paxton to join Gary and Rhonada. We’ve been split up a lot this summer, and it will be good to get the crew all together again before we make the big move to Montana.  

Thank you to our 2024 All Aboard Wheat Harvest sponsors: High Plains Journal, Lumivia by Corteva Agriscience, Unverferth Manufacturing Co., Inc., Merit Auctions, Kramer Seed Farms,Shelbourne Reynolds, and U.S. Custom Harvesters, Inc.