Day 70.

August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 / aeporior / 1 Comment

We’ve been in New England, North Dakota for two weeks now, and surprisingly it’s gone fairly well up until a few days ago. Starting in mid-August, ND weather usually turns into a crap shoot- you never know what you’re dealing with really. When we were here last year, it was 80 degrees on a Friday, two days later that Sunday was a high of 35 degrees with freezing rain. Nasty and miserable. Thankfully we had a stretch of good, hot weather that cooked our fields. There were some late starts, early nights, and a few days where the farmer told us not to bother.

durum durum.

Even with it being stop and go, we so far have managed to cut all of our farmer’s spring wheat, and about a third of the durum. The past few days we’ve been running up against green durum that isn’t quite ready, and we’ve been playing the “find the dry patches in the field” in between the threat of rain.

stupid weeds.

Durum is a very specific type of hard wheat. It’s worth much more than the typical hard red winter and hard red spring wheat that’s typically grown. Regular wheat is used for feed and flour, but amber durum is to make flour for pasta and can be processed into semolina. After the durum is ready to be cut, farmers can get a bit fanatic to get it off as soon as possible- if ripe durum gets rained on, it gets bleached out, which causes it to be worth approx. a dollar less per bushel- which adds up to be a lot.

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The canola is still a ways out yet, but was sprayed earlier this week. Fingers crossed, we can jump on that in a few days. We straight cut canola here, which is always a fantastic time (/sarcasm).

Sunflowers (or, just “flowers”) are a pretty big crop in North Dakota as well. We don’t cut flowers, but a lot of our fields border flower fields. Seriously, how can one not be happy when there’s a couple hundred acres of these looking at you?

sunflower fields forever.

I mean, really. flowers!

When we’re here in ND, we cut back on how many people we need. Because all of the grain goes right to the farmer’s bins, we only have two truck drivers. We also only run three combines and one cart. Matt hops in a combine up here, and I’m usually on the ground until the remaining college kids go home. We only have one up here this year, so I’ll hop into that combine, and we’ll have a total of six people.

white sage and goldenrod. nothing to do with anything.

We rent out part of a house/pheasant lodge to stay in, and it has a full kitchen, living room, and dining room set up. By this point of the year, it’s fantastic to be able to have real meals, space to relax that isn’t a hotel room, and a tv to watch the Olympics. The South Africans that came up here with us are an absolute blast. Damn near every night we cook family style and actually all sit down around a table with good food and drinks, which I think has improved the general mood greatly. We’re all away from home, and this makes it feel less so. The inside jokes and stories have definitely increased in the past week.

The warm fuzzy “family” feeling makes for practical jokes if you’re not paying attention.

We’ve got (high) hopes that we can be done here around August 20^th or so and head back home to Valentine. I’m ready to be home for a little bit before leaving for York, Nebraska for our high moisture corn job, and I’m definitely ready to see my dog again. Our farmer’s hired man, Ben, has a pup that makes me miss my dog tons more, but he helps me watch the combines go around the field, and is damn good company (and a pretty decent afternoon nap and cuddle buddy).

Thanks for hanging with me, Trapper!

We didn’t work at all yesterday, and Jan (one of the South Africans) cooked us an amazing meal of beer can chicken done on the grill. Ben and Trapper showed up, and we spent a long time laughing and putting down brandy. Ben also brought us a bunch of lamb, and I am beyond excited. Lamb is something that American’s just cannot cook right, and the SA’s are going to do something amazing with it tonight.

Of Weeks Past

July 30, 2016July 30, 2016 / aeporior / 1 Comment

It’s been almost a month since I’ve taken the time to sit down and write. Time has spun a fast web and I’ve gotten caught up in it. To be honest, I have had the time to write in the past week or so, but lure of extra sleep or brief times we were actually home in Valentine outweighed sitting in front of a computer. Cell phone reception has also been pretty sketchy in the fields we cut, and that’s when I normally take the time to post anything new. Lugging the backpack with my laptop and camera equipment got be to be a pain in the ass too. I’m picky and don’t like it to be in the bed the of the pickup and we didn’t have enough room in the pickups for it to be comfortable. So, unfortunately, most of the pics I’ve taken have been from my phone.

The sky was on fire. -southwest of Ogallala

My last post put us in Dodge City being constantly rained out. Since then we moved to and from Ogallala, NE and Hemingford, NE.

Dodge City/Ford ended up being a one hell of a muddy mess, but thank the lucky stars no one got stuck. We ended up pulling out and leaving just one combine and truck behind to finish up a particularly hellacious field.

We moved from Dodge City to Big Springs/Ogallala area in southwest Nebraska in a series of moves over the course of almost a week. The job itself went really well, even though we had to call in help for our second job near Chappell- there was no way we could do two jobs so close to each other with the amount of combines we had this year. Wheat from Scott City KS all the way into Murdo, South Dakota and places in Idaho and Montana ripened at the same time. I think just about every custom harvester was put into the same position as us. When we got to Ogallala, one of our harvest kids from last year took vacation from his summer job spraying for a co-op this year to come out and run combine for us. (Only a hardcore farmer would take a vacation to go work.) We “stole” a combine from Valentine and needed an extra guy. We were so glad that Seth was able to come and help us out and it was great to catch up with him.

Seth was #thelonewolf

I was able to meet up with the son of a guy that I’ve known for a very large part of my life. Darcey was in the Navy with my dad for many many years, and was pretty much an uncle type figure to me, along with the rest of the unit. His son, Logan, joined with a different harvest crew, and we knew our paths would cross at some point this summer. Luck be have, his crew was cutting less than a mile from us and we were able to chat in the middle of the road (literally) for quite awhile. I think our dad’s were pretty excited that we got to meet up.

Heeeeeey, Logan!

The wheat at home got ready at the same time we were in Ogallala and those poor bastards only had two 670s with 35 ft heads. Virtually all of our wheat is irrigated, so it was a slow process until combines started to come back from Kingsville, TX. After they got two 680s with 40ft heads running with them, harvest went fast. It’s almost funny- Matt and I pretty much never get to see our own company’s wheat.

Ogallala came and went and we moved to Hemingford, NE. The same crew that helped us out in Chappell moved to that job and started for us there. We caught the middle of harvest there, and with two seperate crews, the wheat was knocked out in record time. The farmer had quite a few acres of yellow field peas this year, so after the wheat was done, we got the 680s blown off and pinned up to move to North Dakota, and sent everyone home to Valentine. Matt and I stayed behind with a 670 and a 35ft flex head to do peas. While Matt combined with the farmer, I did a bunch of maintenance work on the 40 ft heads, got the rotor bands and brackets in the 680s.

And we watched it rain and hail more than once. Once storm brought a fury of hail that seemed to just flip the bird to our farmer and only hailed out his crops. We used a scoop shovel to re-ice the beer coolers and sat in his shop and watched it all play out.

Some days require a 60oz coffee…

Hemingford is probably my favorite place to harvest at. We’ve been cutting for the same family owned farm for over 20 years now, and it’s always a lot of fun. Some customers you tend to bond more with, and that’s the case with this job. Another big factor is Phillip’s F&T in Hemingford. Phillip’s is a family owned fuel and trucking station/shop. They are hands down some of my favorite people on this earth. They are so much fun, helpful beyond belief, and always good for a laugh, shenanigans, and just a plain old stress reliever. They are friends. That statement may sound generic, but when you’re on the road for so long, the term “friend” becomes much more meaningful. These are people we talk to year round, people who know what our job entails, people who know the lingo, know when we’re stressed beyond belief, etc. When the night is winding down, you can usually find a movie projected on the side of the shop, wheelbarrows with iced beer, something cooking on the Pizazz, and always good company (and a dog to love on!)

Because of the weather and the delays, we managed to get home and sleep in our own bed on two separate occasions. I’m happy to say that the house is still in good repair from all of the vicious storms Valentine has had in the past week.

Now we’re currently calling New England, North Dakota home. The three combines and cart we needed were moved on Tuesday, and we followed with the pickups, shop truck and headers yesterday. It was a long and frustrating day for us.

Hemingford, NE

Nothing is quite ready here near New England. We cut spring wheat, durum, and straight cut canola for this farmer. The whole area is green. Regent, ND is a popular place for custom crews to base their operations at and holy crap, I’ve never seen Regent so full of harvesters waiting. We sampled a bit tonight on the field that looked the most ready, but it was still at 17.5 on the hill tops. It’s going to be awhile, and we’re going to be here awhile. It seems like this year we’re either early or fashionably late. (Fashionably makes it sound better….?)

Jan.

I’m still a sucker for a sunset and clouds. I don’t often take photos of people, but I managed to snap this one with him knowing. This is Jan, one of the South Africans that joined with us this year. He’s always taking pictures of harvest and every one else, but not many pictures get taken of him.

So, now we sit and wait in ND and hopefully something will happen later today or tomorrow.

Oh, Kansas.

July 1, 2016 / aeporior / Leave a comment

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

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.

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.

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.

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 1^st 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.

June 10, 2016June 10, 2016 / aeporior / 1 Comment

Dacoma- Week 1.

The first official week of harvest is over.

yay, harvest!

We arrived in Dacoma the evening of Thursday, June 2^nd. 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.

Picnics & Tailgates

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.

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.

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.

Caffeine and Diesel

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Wheat

Day 70.

Of Weeks Past

Oh, Kansas.

Harvest: Week One. Dacoma/Alva.