Same Song, Second Verse

The second year of drought has us singing the same song, second verse. As was the case last year, milo harvest 2012 was practically over before it started.

The "harvest" actually began in August, when the guys swathed, then baled half of the 125 acres we'd planted to milo this year.

This is one of the milo fields we swathed in August for cattle feed.

Our total acreage planted was down appreciably this year, from 270 acres last year. In 2010, we planted 290 acres of milo and had a good crop because we got timely rains. It's hard to believe, looking at my 2010 milo harvest post, that there was milo piled on the ground at the Stafford branch of the Kanza Co-op.

2010 - It's amazing what timely rains will do for crops! Click here for what I wrote about it.

The milo we double-cropped following wheat harvest 2012 was actually better than some of the earlier-planted milo. It's hard to evaluate exactly why that happened, except that the later-planted milo got a timely rain shower along the way. With the naked eye, it didn't look too bad.

This photo is kind of misleading. The field didn't look so bad from that perspective.

However, the milo that we cut with a combine instead of a swather made less than 10 bushels per acre. And if you add in the acres that were swathed to the grand total, the whole 2012 milo crop made less than 5 bushels to the acre.

Those figures don't get you nominated for Top Producer or anything - not that anyone in this part of the world had a bin buster either.

For the record, a good harvest would yield 55 bushels per acre. With a great harvest, we might take in 85 bushels to the acre.

As you can see in this photo, there were some heads with grain. But you can also see vast areas of the field with no plants at all, so no heads of grain either.

We plan to try dryland corn instead of milo next year. Today's corn has more drought tolerance built into the seeds than milo does. However, that technology makes the seed a lot more expensive than milo seed, too. So we'll see.

My optimist husband says, "Surely the drought won't last another year." Of course, he said that last year. But his optimism is one reason I love him!

It's "Bin" Real!

The wheat is in the bin (except for random stragglers along the ditches like in the photo above). And while it wasn't the bin buster that it looked to be in the early spring, we do feel blessed that Wheat Harvest 2012 was better at the County Line than it was for others - even some of our neighbors.

It just goes to show what a difference a timely rain makes. We got 1.80" of rain here at our house April 30 as the wheat heads were filling. Farmers just six miles away got only 0.20" that same night. The spotty rains made for a big difference in yields a month later, cutting some yields in half. 

We made history this year. It was our earliest start for wheat harvest ever. We began on May 26 and finished June 9. (We wouldn't have been done that soon without the help of custom cutters - Crockett Farms - and a neighbor and his hired men - Keith, Johann and Henry. Thanks to all of them!) Last year, we started harvest on June 10. In 2010, we began on June 18. (That's one positive thing about blogging: I actually have those dates in black and white!)

Our average yield this year was 45.5 bushels per acre. The high was 63 bushels per acre on one field and the low was 22 bushels an acre on lower-quality ground the owner uses primarily for hunting. Test weights were all between 60 and 64 pounds per bushel, with most above 62. The benchmark for No. 1-graded wheat is 60 pounds per bushel.

I successfully completed another season of Meals on Wheels - Country Version.

There was only one breakdown on the combine and a couple of flat tires and a belt problem on a truck. All in all, we have plenty to be thankful for. And we are!

The end ... well, the end to Wheat Harvest 2012 anyway.

Harvest Moon

Shine on, shine on harvest moon

Up in the sky ...

OK. If you want to get technical about it, our June 4th moon wasn't a harvest moon - at least if you take Wikipedia's word for it. A harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox.

But, since our June moon happened during Wheat Harvest 2012, it was a Harvest Moon in my book. You can't complain about a workday that goes into night when the sky has such beautiful adornments.

While it didn't happen in October, it did fit the definition in other ways. According to Wikipedia, "the Harvest Moon seems to be bigger or brighter or more colorful than other full moons. The warm color of the Moon shortly after it rises is caused by light from the Moon passing through a greater amount of atmospheric particles than when the moon is overhead."

Wheat harvest causes plenty of extra "atmospheric particles" in the form of wheat chaff and dust. And that night, our neighbors had two combines and a grain cart in the field south of us along with our own combine and trucks, so we were stirring up a good amount of "atmospheric particles."

The atmosphere scatters the bluish component of moonlight which is really reflected white light from the sun, but allows the reddish component of the light to travel a straighter path to one's eyes.

It appears larger in size because the brain perceives a low-hanging moon to be larger than one that's high in the sky. This is known as a moon illusion, which is probably why my magic-loving husband called me out to take a look. He does love illusions.

The moon looked like an extra running light for the combine as the machine worked its way to the east. Pretty as a picture, don't you think?

Moonrise over harvest field, June 4, 2012

Check out another version (better than mine) that our neighbor Julie McNickle took.

And the harvest continues. Our neighbor's combine arrived like the cavalry last night, right after supper. They are done with their harvest and came to help us finish. Today, I'll set two more places at the dinner table for an extra combine driver and truck driver.

Sunset, June 7, 2012

So the sun will set on Harvest 2012 sooner than expected - maybe even later today!

Me and My Shadow

As the combine makes another swath through the field, I watch the wheat feed into the header in front of me. 'Round and around my farmer takes me, the combine eating up the bowed golden heads, removing the kernels and spitting out the straw and chaff in a cloud of dust.

It's the same, over and over and over again. And you hope for the sameness. If the combine keeps on its hungry path, it means that gears and levers are moving along as designed. It means that you're not waiting for trucks to arrive back at the field after flat tires or thrown belts. (Yes, there have been two flat tires and a belt incident so far this harvest.)

But then I notice the shadows.

There we are, reflected in the combine window in front of us - me taking yet another photo and Randy with hands on the wheel. It's not a mirror image, but just a different way of looking at ourselves.

I turn and look at the grain tumbling from the auger into the combine's bin. And, as it spills, I see Randy's shadow from another perspective and also see the grain truck reflected in the glass as it sits across the field.

Sometimes, in the sameness of our lives, it's good to see things from a new angle. We go 'round and 'round, not pausing to notice the people and the places right in front of us. It sometimes takes looking at the same thing in a new way.

We shouldn't spend life looking through a rearview mirror, but sometimes it helps us figure out where to go in the future, doesn't it?

Rain Delay

You know that feeling when you're in the stands of a baseball game or a football game and the stadium announcer proclaims, "There's going to be a rain delay."

That's not how we feel this morning. We are mighty thankful for this morning's rain delay in Harvest 2012. Last night, we got 0.80" of rain here at home and - more importantly - no hail to go with it.

Photo by Dale Hearn, Zenith branch, Kanza Co-op via Facebook

As the clouds rolled in late yesterday afternoon, one of our trucks lost its belts and ended up in a photo that our friend, Dale Hearn, took looking slightly north and east from the Zenith elevator office, where he works. We got quite a lightning show as the storm rolled its way from north to south, an unusual storm pattern for our part of the world. Our weather usually arrives via the southwest.

No matter how it got here, we are thankful for the rain. Sure, we won't be cutting wheat today.

But the rain was a blessing to our alfalfa fields ...

And to our new milo crop, which appeared to be guzzling in a nice, cool drink of water this morning.

Now that's a rain delay we can all appreciate.

4/4 Vision

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. 

There are seven million. 

 ~Walt Streightiff 

Maybe what the world needs is 4-year-old vision. What would life be like if we approached it with the fascination and wonder of a child?

Randy picked up an extra rider for a little bit on Monday afternoon. Adam, age 4, came to the farm to ride a combine. I'm not sure who had more fun -- Adam or Randy.

"We are going to have a great time," Adam declared, big as you please as he joined Randy in the combine cab.

And they did.

Adam lives in Hutchinson with his parents and his baby brother, Asher, who had to watch from the sidelines as Adam rode shotgun with Randy.

His mom, Katie, said that Adam has been asking lots of questions about combines, so she and husband, Jared, who both grew up in Stafford, decided to see if they could get him an up-close-and-personal look at Harvest 2012. We were happy to oblige.

Here on The County Line, we strive to keep the helpers happy. So I fixed both boys a snack in brown paper bags labeled with their names. Combine driving makes you hungry for M & M Cookies, washed down with a bottle of water.

Adam learned about the header ...

about the grain collecting in the bin behind the cab ...

about unloading the wheat into the truck ...

about all the gadgets in the combine cab ...

And lots more.

His mom says that Adam informed them that, "Wheat is in the bread that makes my peanut butter and jellies!" (That just happens to be his favorite food.)

Randy was quoted in an article in The Hutchinson News this past weekend about fewer young people returning to their rural roots to farm. Adam definitely has the farming bug at the moment. We'll see where he is in 18 years or so. 

 The world is as many times new as there are children in our lives.

  ~Robert Brault

Timing Is Everything

American flags weren't the only things flying on Memorial Day this year.

Strong south winds blew Harvest 2012 onto our South Central Kansas farm over the weekend. Those amber waves of grain could have made you seasick with their tossing and turning on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

It's not out of the ordinary to be cutting wheat on the 4th of July. Back when I was a kid, we were usually cutting wheat on my birthday, June 27, and harvest often extended into early July.

Since Randy and I have been married, harvest seems to have arrived earlier. and we have often been done cutting by my birthday and, certainly, by Independence Day. (Independence Day is rather an apt description of how it feels to be done with harvest, but I digress.)

But, until this year, we've never cut wheat on Memorial Day. We took our first truckloads of wheat to town on Saturday, May 26. Other people began cutting before we did. An area farmer cut one small field north of Stafford and hauled it to town on May 22. It caused a lot of "combine fever" and scrambling by his neighbors to find some dry wheat.

More joined the harvest parade by Friday, May 25, but ours was still too wet to cut. But, by late afternoon on Saturday, the moisture was down to 13.5, and Harvest 2012 on The County Line commenced.

Randy has been farming since he was a sophomore in high school. (Oh my goodness! That's 40 years.) He can't remember cutting wheat before the second week in June.

My parents, who have been farming full-time in Pratt County since the 1950s, think June 7th was their earliest wheat harvest start until this year.

According to a neighbor, Randy's late Great Uncle Glenn Bagley cut wheat on May 30th, though we're not sure what year. Randy rented his first farm ground from his Uncle Glenn, who lived just a half mile to the south of Randy's boyhood home, and we still farm for his daughter, Mary.

We decorated Randy's folks' graves on Friday afternoon with his sister, Kathy, and her girls, Amanda and Emily. (How did I miss getting photos?!)

On Sunday, Randy missed the annual cemetery trek with my family. But I went on the annual excursion to Pratt's Greenlawn Cemetery, as well as Iuka, Pleasant Plains, Prattsburg and Macksville Cemeteries.

It was a first cemetery tour for my great-niece Neelly. She posed by her great-great-grandparents' gravestone, for whom she is named.

She got quite the family history lesson (and I'm sure at 13 months, she'll remember every word of it.) She and Great Grandma Moore posed at Neelly's great-great-great grandpa's grave in the Prattsburg Cemetery in rural Stafford County.

(To read more about the unusual Woodmen of the World grave marker, read this post by blogger Lynda Beck Fenwick.)

But I was back home in time to make my Meals on Wheels delivery to the guys and to see a spectacular sunset over the wheat fields.

More to come on Harvest 2012!