13 Sep Christy: Putting on the brakes

Ocheyedan, Iowa — September usually means that fall is right on our heels, but around home fall is nowhere in sight. When Zoey and I first arrived back home from North Dakota, fields were completely green. After running back up to North Dakota for Labor Day weekend, some fields of soybeans have begun to turn yellow in a few spots, but I’m not sure anyone will start combining until the very end of this month, or possibly even until in October. One exception is one of our farmers in Minnesota. He has some early beans planted that could be ready by the end of next week.

With fall a long way down the road yet, our crew is still running in North Dakota on durum, chickpeas and lentils. I believe they will soon run out of acres and probably head back this way sometime between the end of next week and the following week. The good thing about having a little downtime between seasons is that we can get caught up on maintenance and prepare for fall crops.

As far as I can tell, I think crops look pretty good around here. I don’t think we’ll see outstanding crops, but we should see a good harvest. Our area saw a ton of rain this summer, and there are quite a few fields that have spots that were drowned out. You can see some spots have been replanted, while others still lay bare. It will certainly affect yields, but I’m hoping it’s not too drastic.

While at home, I’ve been busy getting our yard cleaned up and working on getting our house back in order. There’s a lot to do when you close your house up for three months. We had a bit of a bat issue when I first returned home, but I’m hoping after having a bat exterminator here, we shouldn’t see any signs of the creatures in a couple of weeks. Zoey has started school, and she seems to be enjoying it so far. We’ve done a few fun things around home that we miss out on while on the road. We’ve definitely stayed busy, but I think both Zoey and I would agree we’re ready for Paul and the crew to return.

When everyone does return from North Dakota, we will have crews beginning in Roscoe, South Dakota, Elkton, South Dakota, and by Round Lake, Minnesota. I don’t believe all these areas will be ready at the same time, so it’s likely we’ll bring everyone home before heading out again.

We had a really great southern run during wheat harvest. It started early and held the same pace for most of the summer. We saw a few rain breaks in Montana this year, which is unusual, but it was appreciated. Our crew has been safe and kept working incredibly hard to help us accomplish all our goals. I’m excited to see what fall has in store, and, hopefully by the end of next week, we’ll be able to dip our feet in soybeans to see what crops look like.