13 Sep Kimberly: Where did summer go?

I am not sure about all of you, but I think the summer went by faster than it normally does, maybe because we had fewer rain delays. My name is Kimberly Neumiller with Neumiller Harvesting out of Bowdon, North Dakota. My husband, Mychal, and I have two kids, Bentley and Payzlee. They have started school for the year already and, so far, are enjoying spending time with their friends.

Neumiller Harvesting was established in 2004, which makes this our 20th year of doing what we love. We are a family-owned operation that is run by Roger, Mychal, Cole and Logan. Renee, Karlie, Danica, myself and our children make the run south every year to help out, whether it is cooking, running for parts, helping move equipment or operating equipment. As some of the kids have gotten older, you will find them helping a lot more when needed. Bentley and Kyler spent their fair share of time in the fields this year running the grain cart or helping move to the next field. Payzlee helped do some cooking, learned how to use the washer and dryer and packed food up to deliver it when we would take food out to the fields. We run 10 Case combines, four Elmer’s Haulmaster grain carts, four 45-foot MacDon Flex headers, eight 40-foot MacDon Flex headers and three Shelborne Stripper headers. We also have Freightliner, Peterbilt, Kenworth and Volvo trucks. Yes, I said Volvo! Mychal decided we should invest in two automatic Volvos just before we headed south. A lot of the guys made fun of him for buying them, but on moving days it’s pretty funny to see them fight over who gets to drive them!

You may remember most of my articles last fall talked about down time or rain, rain and more rain, but seeing how this summer has gone we are hoping that the weather continues to stay nice for our fall harvest. We arrived in Vernon, Texas, May 15^th this year, and the way our harvest started we were all concerned it was going to be like last year. It rained for the first week that we were there, so it was roughly a week to two weeks of waiting again. Once we started, we were going hard. We had a few delays here and there over the three-month span, but it usually consisted of a day or two, so with that I think our season went too fast.  Our south run starts in Texas. Then we move up to Oklahoma, Kansas, over to Colorado, Montana and back to North Dakota with the occasional stop in Nebraska and South Dakota. Our fall run usually stays in North Dakota, but we have ventured to South Dakota a few times. The crops that we normally do in this area are canola, durum, wheat, barley, soybeans and corn.

Currently we have five combines in the South Heart, North Dakota, area, two near Langdon, North Dakota, and three in Westhope, North Dakota.