24 Sep Sherry: It’s been a busy week

Bishop, Texas — Hi y’all! We started this week with getting our low boy ready to haul our cotton pickers. We changed a few tires and airbags. We had to work on some wires because those pesky little pests like to chew on them.

After we made sure the trailer was ready to go, we were finally ready to load the first cotton picker. It takes at least two people to get it loaded. Brian (my husband) is the one who guides the driver, which is normally one of our sons, Wailynn or Wyatt. This time it was Wyatt. The cotton picker gets loaded by backing up onto the trailer. Brian lies on the ground and motions to Wyatt which way to turn the steering wheel so that it gets loaded perfectly. After it’s loaded, usually five of us will chain it down with six chains. We did this twice the same day. We had a friend of ours haul one of our other machines so that we were able to get two cotton pickers hauled on this first trip.

Once the two cotton pickers were loaded and chained down, we called it a day and decided we would head out first thing the next morning. The next morning, we were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to hit the road. We headed north to the southeastern area of Texas. The cotton is not quite ready to be harvested, but we wanted to get our machines there. We have a couple of more weeks before we get to picking. This was the second time I had to be lead escort for two of those massive pieces of equipment. Thankfully, the trip was smooth and flawless! Those kinds of hauls make me want to do it again.

Also this week, Brian hauled a combine north to southwest Kansas for fall harvest. While, he ran that first combine north, the boys and I loaded up and chained down the tractor and buggy, along with all the headers to haul on our second trip north. When Brian made it back, we loaded up the next combine, also for the second trip. The last thing to get ready was the camper and tidy up the house. We packed the camper with our clothes (unsure of what to pack… shorts or jeans because our weather here in Bishop, Texas, has easily been over 100 degrees and will be over 100 well into October), so we just packed it all!

Running our combines out of state for fall harvest is a new adventure for us. We have run our combines in Texas for fall harvest, but never out of state. We are excited to be headed to a new area and meet new farmers in a new community.