travel

Oh, Kansas.

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“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
-Charles Dudley Warner

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At least the arrival of bad weather makes for some killer pictures.

And trust me, if there was one group of people in the world that could do something about the weather, it would be farmers.

We are still stuck in Ford/Dodge City. No offense to Kansas, but I’m starting to get sick of you. Any ground and time we had gained at the start of harvest has disappeared in a heart beat.

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As awful as this storm was to watch roll in, somehow by the grace of God we didn’t get anything out of it. Like I said, killer pics.

Six combines and four grain carts have now left over the course of the week for Kingsville TX to harvest the entire milo crop for the historic King Ranch. If you’ve never heard of the King Ranch, I highly encourage you to take a quick look at the history behind the Ranch. It’s absolutely incredible, and the scale of it’s diverse operations is enormous. I was lucky enough to go down a few years back before Matt took over “the north route”.

So, now we’re down to three combines and one grain cart to slowly finish the last of our job in Ford. The weather has not been cooperating and it’s been one step forward, two steps back. We only have about two hundred acres left here and we have to get to Big Springs, NE. In all reality, we should be there now.

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Down wheat and bad weather makes for some miserable cutting conditions.

The only solace is that we know a bunch of other harvest crew stuck in the same situation. It’s not really a solace, I guess. No one wants to be stuck at a job. No one wants the weather to be shitty. Everyone wants a quick, fast, hard run.

But all of us know that concept is never a reality. If wishes were horses…well…. combines would be running full bore.

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I tried giving Mother Nature the stare down. It didn’t work.

Nothing real exciting has happened since my last post. If the weather is decent, we can run. Thankfully the rain has mostly occurred at night, so the next day we stay busy doing maintenance on trailers, trucks, combines, tractors, and this week, loading the equipment for Texas.

We’ve been on the road for just shy of a month now, and we still have a long road ahead of us. It’s hard to believe it’s July 1st already.

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Wish I could write something with more juicy details or anything exciting, but, it’s been boring. Boring is good though because it means nothing awful has happened.

This is how farming and harvesting goes. Hurry up and wait. Suck it up and take Mother Nature for what she’s worth. No one can control the weather, but what a superpower that would be.

Take what you can get inch by inch. Beat your head against the wall. Live and breath and love and hate this job all at the same time. Go to bed and wake up the next morning and do what you can. Try to be a little bit better each day.

Harvest: Week One. Dacoma/Alva.

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Dacoma- Week 1.

The first official week of harvest is over.

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yay, harvest!

We arrived in Dacoma the evening of Thursday, June 2nd. We split the “convoy” up into three small groups, and we were the last group to arrive thanks to a flat tire on the header trailer I was pulling. (It happens. Funnily enough, this is my first flat ever, which I think is a pretty good track record so far.) We got to our parking and unloading space to find the others had unloaded the last combine, put on the beacon lights and bin extensions, and organized the equipment in the lot. After that we went into Alva and checked in to our hotel- our first “home” of the year.

Friday, I went to Bucklin, KS to pick up a header from last summer that we left at the dealership. It had needed work that we weren’t able to do ourselves, and rather than driving down from Valentine to pick it up when it was finished (we don’t need it after wheat harvest anyways), we left it there until we arrived in OK this year. While I was on my journey, the rest of the crew put duals on and finished up some other projects. I got back to Dacoma around 230pm and all of us went to eat lunch at the Smok-Shak in Ingersoll. (One of my favorite places to eat ever. Just a little hole in the wall on Highway 64, but dear God, can they smoke some meat. Seriously drool-worthy.) Wheat was still looked pretty green and the ground pretty wet from the recent rain, so we went back to our hotel and let the “kids” get acquainted with Alva a bit. I took a nap.

Saturday, Matt and I drove around to the majority of our fields in the morning to check on the progress. Another crew leader took his guys out to move their machines over by Carmen. To our surprise, we found quite a few that were incredibly close. It had gotten hot the past two days with a strong steady breeze, and that makes conditions change fast.

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While scouting fields, I received a message from our friend John. John went on harvest with us for the past two years, and I’ve kept in contact with him on a regular basis. This year, he snagged a special internship and is traveling with wheat harvest with experimental equipment. We met John and his co-worker, Thomas (we got to know Thomas from last year from when we had an experimental combine) and ate again at the Smok-Shak (way too much food for the second day in a row). It was a blast having lunch with those two. We swapped stories and did a lot of catching up. It’s an awesome feeling to see familiar faces on the harvest trail when you’re far from home.

Later that afternoon, we drove back our to a field and decided to sample it. After grabbing a combine and a grain cart, to our surprise the wheat was much dryer than we originally thought. Like I said before, conditions can change fast. Matt poked around the field a bit, and opened it up for the next day. I hopped in the grain cart, and didn’t have to wait all that long to fill it. By that time, the final wave of equipment arrived from Valentine, and we drove back over to our staging area to meet up with them, then heading back to the hotel.

Sunday kicked off harvest full bore. We moved some more equipment around and then drove into Dacoma to eat lunch in the shade at the park. Sometimes just having shade and not eating quick in a wheat field is pure bliss. We even played a little football.

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Picnics & Tailgates

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Matt tossing the pigskin around.

After lunch all nine combines were fired up and running, split between three different crews. Our crew has four combines and two grain carts running.

The first few “real” days of harvest are always the hardest. Kids are eager to get out and start combining, but training has to be done, equipment has to be moved around, etc. It takes time for everyone to get into the swing of things and to start feeling comfortable. Usually about a week in things start to calm down and every one gets into a pattern. Running all new equipment can get interesting at times too. It needs to get broke in and every once in awhile you’ll find a bad sensor, loose connection, etc. There is always something. Always.

The rest of the week went by without any (out of the ordinary) problems. Monday and Tuesday were pretty calm.

On Wednesday, our favorite place to get lunch reopened for the season. The girls at the Dacoma Diner are absolutely awesome, and I love visiting with them nearly every day. They really go above and beyond for us, even pushing themselves this year to get open a bit earlier than they had planned just because we were in town. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten close to them, and this year there was definite excitement when they opened (and not just because I hate packing coolers of food in the back of pickups and trying to keep it cold all day). The day went pretty smooth harvesting-wise. I spent a lot of time running between two crews with lunch, parts, and moving crews down the road. After those two crews settled into their last fields of the night, I decided to take a few minutes (maybe a bit more than a few) and hang out at the Dacoma Farmer’s Co-op, one of the main elevators we haul into.

I shouldn’t be biased, but I think all custom harvesters have their favorite co-ops and elevators. Dacoma is by far my favorite place. It’s been the same people working there for the most part for years. When you harvest in the same place for so long, you tend to get to be pretty good friends. The men (and woman!) of this particular co-op are hands down some of the most fun people we have the pleasure of “dealing with” on harvest. They’re also good for cold drinks, snacks, hilarious stories, and everyone knows that the local co-op is the best place to catch up on the local gossip and weather reports. I got back to my crew and found our friend John hanging out in the field with us.

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Me, on my “office”.

Thursday, John was waiting on a shipment that got delayed, so he hung out with us for pretty much the whole day. It was a blessing in disguise because he was willing and able to help us move equipment, which would have been a pain otherwise. We moved from Dacoma to just south of Kiowa, which isn’t a long drive, but can be a pain to move four combines, two grain carts, a shop truck, and only three pickups and header trailers. We did the move in two trips, and although a bit slow, went fine. Thursday was one of “those days” however. Nothing major happened, but enough little things happened to make the day a bit frustrating. My day ended pretty late.

Today is going much better, and I’m actually writing this on my laptop in the pickup (much easier than trying to chip away at a post on my phone). Gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. The middle of the day was my most hectic, but right now we’re cutting a full section (without terraces or ditches!), which means no more moving or messing around. Definitely taking advantage of this “quiet” time.

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Me, in my “office”.

If this hot and dry weather continues to stick around for a few more days, after Sunday/Monday, our time in OK will be very close in sight. Matt and I need to get our crew to Ford, KS near Dodge City at least by the middle of next week. They’ve had the same hot dry weather and that wheat is rapidly approaching its cutting time.

As a first week, it’s been a damn good one. Wheat is tall, thick, yielding fantastic, insane test weight and has been generally easy cutting. The wheat belt hasn’t done overly spectacular the past few years, and everyone is due for a good harvest- farmers and harvesters both.

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Rain rain go away.

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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

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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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the tempering of wanderlust

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In the whole year of 2015 I was on the road one way or another for a total of a scattered six months.

Trips to haul to equipment for the start of harvest, mini vacation weekends, the long harvest itself, and many different treks back to Wisconsin for holidays and wedding planning. So many miles traveled, so many different unique places.

I love being home- the dog, our own bed, being able to cook real food, but over the past few years wanderlust has settled deep into my bones.

Not right away. It takes a bit of time. It starts off with just hopping the pickup and going for a drive. 10478677_10100161210276957_572497094808312584_nThere’s something comforting about dirt roads and asphalt. The growl of an engine. Open country with clouds. Small towns that are barely on a map that no one notices.

It started with missing Wisconsin. I grew up in the hardwoods and Nebraska isn’t known for it’s trees. (Hilariously enough, Arbor Day started in Nebraska.) I went from thick forests that stood firm right up against major highways packed with traffic to dirt roads with open land as far as the eye can see. Slowly it transitioned- a few years after moving to Nebraska, we drove back. The forests I used to find so calming had turned almost chokingly claustrophobic.

I feel an almost unsettling ache to be on the road again. When you travel (even for work) you leave bits and pieces of your soul strewn about. Relationships with people. The land. Even little things start popping into your mind, like an old lone windmill at the east side of a wheat field that you always park by. Something always feels missing after you return home, where ever home may be.

For me, it’s a constant internal debate as to “where” home is. Is it WI, where I grew up, where my closest friends are, where both Matt and I’s families are? Or is it NE, where I live now, have settled down and made roots, have a job I love, and friends that truly understand my life and what it has become?
My Dad spent years in the military traveling, and one of the last times I was in WI we had a deep conversation about the concept. He brought a view to it that I hadn’t considered- “home” doesn’t change. The traveler changes.

Your views, experiences, sights, thoughts, habits, everything about you changes. You don’t realize it. Then, when you go home, there’s this almost frustration, this not quite anxiety that starts to creep up on you. You’re not there for big events, you miss out on weddings, new family members being born, baptisms, holidays, and even the little things like spontaneous dinners. You miss out. It’s all just snapshots into a different life.

So you go home, and find out that life has gone on without you.

It’s this feeling of wistfulness– wishing you were there for everything, but at the same time wishing your friends and family could go into your mind and understand. Time at “home” still flows and you feel like an outsider. But, your time also is flowing, like currents in a river. Still the same river, but different swirls and eddies. I think the older you get, the more this feeling stretches out and touches on the way things used to be, what the could be, what might have been. There’s never regret- regret is pointless, but the thoughts are always there.

Wheat harvest is fast approaching- it feels like forever since we left last year, and it feels like yesterday. The first haul of combines is leaving this weekend to be unloaded at our first stop in Oklahoma.

Harvest is coming and so starts the tempering of my wanderlust.