Planting

Rain rain go away.

/ aeporior / Leave a comment

April showers bring May flowers.

Or so they say.

Because all this spring has brought was a dreadfully rainy and severe storm filled month of May.

I don’t want to know what May weather brings for June. Hopefully hot, dry, and good wheat cutting conditions.

The past few weeks have been crazy.

This is the time of year where I think just about every farmer thinks “How the hell are we going to get this all done in time?” and the answer that is always said goes along the line of “It always manages to get done.”

And, everything somehow usually does manage to get done. Everyone knows you can’t control the weather and conditions, but things always manage to just get done.

Because of all the rain, planting season has been dragging on. Fieldwork has been almost impossible. Those of us running one trippers, vertical tills, discs, and field finishers have barely been able to get into the fields to do secondary tillage before the planters. There were numerous days where the planters were forced to shut down and wait. As soon as we thought we would get caught up and have enough of a timing gap between the fieldwork and planters, it would rain again. Some fields had to be done twice. One field washed out so bad that the county was forced to bring out a snow plow to scrape the mud and corn stalks from last season off the road. Even as I write this, it’s raining again.

The worst storm dumped five inches of rain, seven inches in some places, along with high winds, a few tornados (thankfully not super close to town) and oh, the hail it dumped out. This picture was taken quick by a coworker/friend as he went to the shop to check for damage and to pull all possible equipment inside or under the giant shed. It became a running joke for awhile- “How much rain did we get last night?” “Oh, about half a tire worth”

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We should have been done by now, but every cloud has a silver lining, however small. We’ve been able to get a lot of things ready to leave on harvest. All equipment and trailers have been checked over, shop trucks restocked and ready. Two loads of equipment totaling eight combines and one header have already been hauled down to our first stop. The remaining combine, four tractors and carts, shop trucks and fuel trailers, and seven more headers will be taken on final trip down, with another tractor and cart following. One header is waiting for us in at a John Deere dealer in Bucklin, KS which will be a side trip at some point.

On the second trip, I went with and pulled a header and trailer down. We loaded the pickup on the step deck, and headed right back for home. We knew that the weather was not going to be on our side. It started raining just north of Alva, OK, and by the time we got to Medicine Lodge, KS it was really coming down. We had more than enough fuel to last until we had to stop for the night, so we decided not to stop with the other trucks that were with us. We’re glad we did. By not stopping, that allowed us to get into a tiny pocket of calmer storm conditions. We timed it just right- any sooner and farther north by even just a few miles we would have gotten into some really awful weather, and the same would have been if we had stopped for fuel and was even twenty minutes behind. We had the weather on the radio, and I constantly had the radar pulled up on my phone in real time. Baseball size hail, straight line winds, and even tornadoes were all around us, save for our little pocket. We managed to get to Russell, KS safely and park for the night without any damage. It’s not the first time we’ve had to drive in crappy weather, and it won’t be the last, but that storm filled my weather fascination for the rest of the year I think.

All of the hired harvest help is now in town anxiously awaiting our departure. The South Africans, including three that worked for us last year, arrived safely two Fridays ago. Some help has been here for almost two weeks already. It’s been nice to have the extra bodies around the shop and people to do the odd jobs and do some work in the fields so the rest of us can focus on either working on planters or getting ready to leave on harvest. It seems so far that we have a really good group of guys hired, mostly college aged “kids” as per the usual. We have 25 people as of now going on harvest, but that number will fluctuate as we go to job to job and have to call in back up people from home to help.

Matt and I held the mandatory safety meeting this past Saturday, and I think it went well. Some of us have sat through that meeting too many times now to find it interesting, so I redid the presentation and added pictures that have been taken over the years.

On a personal level, this spring has also been insanely crazy. We not only sold my car (we barely use it enough to really justify the cost of having it; we function just fine 80% of the year with just the pickup), but we also are in the process of purchasing our first real house.

For your sanity, however, I do not suggest buying a house two weeks before you have to leave, during planting season, in a rainy spring, and making trips to Oklahoma to haul equipment. I did find out it’s a great way to get a jump start on a summer weight loss program.

We got word from the bank that we were accepted, but due to us leaving on harvest, we don’t officially close until August. The house we’re buying belongs to one of the owners of the company we work for, and he had no problem letting us move in before we left. Thankfully, I was able to give up my tractor for a few days, and managed to keep our pickup with me. I hammered down and in about four long days I was able to get everything packed, moved, and unpacked into the new house. By myself. Big shout out to our good friend Mike and two of the harvest kids- after getting done spreading chicken manure on organic fields early one day, they voluntarily hooked onto a big trailer, loaded all of our furniture, brought it to the new house, and unloaded it inside within a matter of an hour.

Finally got to unpack all of the presents we had gotten from our wedding in March. It kind of felt like Christmas seeing everything again.

Memorial Day weekend was actually pretty laid back for us- we worked all day Friday and Saturday, said screw it on Sunday. We held a big grill out with the harvest kids, the South Africans, and our friends/people we work with. Today, Matt went into work and let me sleep. I caught up on laundry, and some more unpacking, and took more than one or two naps. I only felt slightly guilty.

The current plan is for almost everyone to leave on Thursday. We’ll space out the timing of the groups leaving so we’re not one giant convoy moving down the road.

I still have to pack for the both of us, send the dog off to her “summer vacation home”, and do some odds and ends errands around town before we leave. It feels like we just left on harvest a few weeks ago, not a year ago already. Farming and getting older tend to blur the line of memory.

Haven’t been able to get out the camera lately, not even very many pictures from my phone. To be honest, I’ve hardly had time, and when I do have time, I don’t really feel like Although I did finally get a kickass new Lowepro camera backpack that I’m absolutely in love with.

I did manage to snap a quick pic with my phone between storms while I was moving.

I’ll end with this- no matter how busy you are, or what is going on in your life at the moment, take a few minutes each day just to look at the clouds.

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Q&A: Part One

/ aeporior / 2 Comments

Sometimes, I get asked questions. It comes in the form of small talk- like when you’re at a salon, a nurse asking questions before the doctor comes in, waiting at an airplane terminal.
Usually I’m glad to answer their questions, but sometimes it gets tiring. How do you explain what you do for a living to someone that doesn’t have a clue about the agricultural world? There are times I wish I just had a card that I could pull out of my wallet and give to the person. Something like a brief summary. It would go like this. You can pick your answer.

What do you do for a living?
I farm!
I work for a family owned and operated large scale grain farming company. We farm 20,000+ acres of conventional and organic soybeans, corn, wheat, rye, popcorn, pinto and kidney beans. Fieldwork starts in March, followed by planting, cultivating, and eventually ending in final harvest usually around November. Our company also does custom harvesting, which means we travel in TX, OK, KS, NE, SD, and ND and harvest other people grain; mostly wheat, some durum and canola, and a little bit of corn. Depending on the year (aka, Mother Nature and predicted crop yield) we take about 9 John Deere S680 combines with 40 ft. grain heads and 4-5 John Deere 8370R tractors with Brent 1196 grain carts along with a mix of Freightliner and Peterbilt semis with Cornhusker grain trailers. We also have 3 fully equipped shop trucks with fuel tanks and trailers we bring. We leave on the harvest trail late May after our crops are in, and are on the road through early August. The crew I’m on also leave again middle August into September, and again in mid September. Last year I spent a total of six months on the road, including trips back to WI. During the winter months we replace the years equipment with new equipment- 12 combines, approx 22 tractors, etc. All need to be gone through, thoroughly washed, old ones brought to dealerships, and new ones picked up from the factories. By the time all that has been taken care of, it’s time to go through 5 planters, all of the fieldwork implements, and that brings us to March again. That’s our year in a nutshell.

Oh, you farm! You must have a ton of cute furry cows and chickens and pigs and stuff?!
We grain farm and don’t have any cattle or anything like that!
No. Hell no. That would add to the headache.
I do have a German Shepherd- Kelpie mix that would love to have some animals to “play” with though. I’d love to have a small acreage someday with a steer or two, couple of chickens, and a nice big vegetable garden again. Someday. When we have time.

So you work on a farm…. are you like the farm secretary? What do you “do”?
We have an office that’s full of awesome secretaries that deal with all of that stuff. I’m out in the field with the rest of the guys!
 (ah, yes! I am woman therefore I can only be in an office!)
I do play secretary when we’re on the road for harvest. I keep track of internship paperwork, receipts, payments, make hotel reservations and things like that for all the crews.
During the winter I recruit possible new hires and interns for the next season, help with interviews, etc. But no, I’m not an office person at all.
My office is inside of a pickup, combine, or tractor. Yes, I drive all those things, operate them, and work on the them.
In spring I do field work, seed tend, and keep everyone else running and (somewhat) happy. On harvest I’m also equipment hauler, flag vehicle, equipment mover, lunch getter, part runner, fuel deliverer, grain samples to the elevators, the runner, the gopher, and everything else that needs to be done. There’s a not so nice word that is generally used. It rhymes with witch, and I’m everyone’s. It’s fun. I love it. I’m never in one place for very long which suits me.
During fall harvest I usually grain cart. I like it. It seems like a vacation. All I have to do is get the grain from the combine, dump it on a truck, and record the weights. It’s simple and no one bothers me.
In winter I work in the shop when I feel like it. Mostly I enter into a hibernation mode and say “screw you world.”

You work with all guys then? Are there other girls that you work with? Does that get old after while?
Yes and no!
There are the “office girls” that keep the whole company running which is a giant undertaking. Those girls are worth their weight in gold. They really go above and beyond- even taking care of our personal matters like paying our bills when we’re gone, getting our mail, picking up prescriptions, running errands, going to the grocery store because we’re out in the fields during any sort of business hours, etc. They make our lives tons easier and probably don’t ever get thanked enough for it. But I don’t work in the office with them.
As far as the shop is concerned, yes, I’m the only girl. There have only been 2 other girls that have come out for summer harvest and they. were. awesome.
Working with all guys is great. No one cares what you look like, smell like, talk like, act like, etc. There’s considerably less drama than working with girls, and if someone has a problem they come directly to your face instead of talking behind your back. For the most part. We all talk crap to each other, but I know that if it came down to it, if something happened, there’d be a whole line of guys waiting to beat the crap out of a guy who pissed me off. These guys are my family, my best friends, my drinking and cook out buddies, my confidants, my rant listeners, etc. 

That sounds like a lot of hard dirty work and long hours!
Yeah, it can be!

No.
Freaking.
Shit.

Dirt. Grease. Fuel. Engine oil. Hydraulic oil. DEF. Fertilizer. Chaff. Dust. Mud. Anti-seize. Brake cleaner. Unknown goo. Sweat. Blood. Tears (occasionally). It’s been in my hair, skin, clothing, boots, vehicles, in my bra, down my pants, caked in my eyes, up my nose, packed in my ears, jammed under my fingers nails, ruined washers and dryers, dyed and stripped my hair, destroyed clothing, etc.
Try to add in normal stuff like preparing meals, eating, cleaning your house or hotel room you only sleep in, laundry (oh my God the laundry), errands (grocery shopping!), paying bills (thank you online banking and auto pay), keeping in touch with family (because they all want to know what you’re doing, and why haven’t you called us for so long!) taking care of a dog, being a good wife, trying to get a haircut every once in awhile, and sleep. Sleep is a big one. Coffee is my main food group, followed by Diet Coke. If there was something stronger than caffeine and more legal than cocaine, you bet it’d be added.

So why do you do it?
I get to see the country, meet new people and form new relationships, visit old friends, swap stories on rainy days with a beer, view beautiful scenery, hang out with my friends on a daily basis, create a lot of inside jokes, talk to people from all walks of life in agriculture, from the old boys that hang out at the elevators who have seen it all, to the little kids that come out to the field and make you see the world again through a untainted eyes and honest thoughts.

Because I love it.

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Planting 2016

/ aeporior / 1 Comment

This spring has been proving to be a wet one.

Anyone who deals with agriculture knows that the weather dictates everything. As much as humans crave to find an answer about life, we all owe our existence to the fact that we have top soil and that it rains.

Mother Nature has a mind of her own. Sometimes she’s just down right hilarious. Last Saturday was 85 degrees. Three days later it snowed. Right now it’s another day straight of windy cold rain that soaks into your bones.

But, even with the desperately needed monsoon season, we were able to fire up the planters and get a couple thousand acres in the ground.

I don’t often get a chance to take pics of the planters running, but I got lucky enough to pull out my Nikon and snap a few of one of the 36 rows planting corn.

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