God's Handwriting

Sunrise, September 17, 2019 - Happy Birthday, Jill!

A Time to Think

Never lose an opportunity for seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting, a wayside sacrament.—Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Time to Act

Open your arms to beautiful moments and they will come to you.

A Time to Pray

Today God, let me shine for You.

From a Guideposts email devotional

I like to bracket my days with beauty on both ends.

From sunrise skies in the east ...

to sunset skies in the west.

Most of the time, I witness these spectacles by myself with cicadas' buzz as a white-noise undertone. But one evening this week, I had some company. When I saw the pretty clouds and setting sun, I drove to a neighbor's windmill, a vantage point I've used before when featuring the western sky.

When I arrived, the cattle were congregated at the windmill, the bovine equivalent to an evening cocktail hour, I suppose.

I was the party crasher. And they were curious. They kept creeping closer ...

... and closer ...

... and closer ...

 

 ... until I had several standing at the gate. I don't know whether they thought I had grain or hay. But I arrived at the party empty-handed (other than my camera, of course), so we just had some polite conversation before I departed.

I made a couple of other stops before going home ...

... watching the day's light dwindle away like a cowboy riding into the distant sunset.

And I was again reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words:

Never lose an opportunity
 for seeing anything that is beautiful; 

for beauty is God's handwriting,

 a wayside sacrament.

A Buzzard Circles: Cue the Harvest Saga

A buzzard was circling the combine when I went by yesterday afternoon. It wasn't there for the combine, but it might as well have been.

The buzzard was dining on the big, well-fed raccoon who had been eating an all-you-can-eat wheat buffet inside our combine. When Randy started the combine up to move to our remaining 275 acres of wheat, the coon went through the machine, tearing up the radiator and assorted other parts.

The buzzard didn't come for the combine. But Straub's International did. If you are one of those people who thinks raccoons are cute, you are welcome to pay our repair bill!

It was just another part of the Wheat Harvest 2016 saga. We started June 15. Yes, way back then, it looked so promising. And, the wheat we cut early was well above average. Then it began raining. We think it's rained seven times since June 20. We had a hiatus from July 2 through July 11 because the ground was just too soggy.

Thankfully, our neighbor, Gary, rescued us yet again. He had already planned to help us cut to finish up. Now, his machine will harvest our remaining crop. Randy got a quick lesson in transitioning from red to green, and he's been driving the borrowed combine. It has 4-wheel drive, so it has been helpful on the still muddy ground.

I'm glad I took photos of harvest earlier. The photos of beautiful wheat are long gone. From the road, there are so many weeds coming through that you can hardly tell we're cutting wheat. The straw spreader looks more like a lawn mower tossing mulch as it chews through grass.

Photo taken June 15, 2016

But we are thankful to again be cutting. We got a sprinkle of rain overnight. Now, if the rain can just stay away for a couple of days: Fingers crossed!

Who would have thought I'd have to juggle getting set up for the Stafford County Fair with running meals to the field? As superintendent of 4-H foods and nutrition, I'm setting up this afternoon. Judging begins bright and early Wednesday morning. In our current situation, I'm thankful that our active 4-H days are over and we aren't trying to get livestock and a dozen other projects ready to go while still trying to finish up harvest.

I hope that we'll be able to say we're done with harvest sometime before the fair is over.  If all goes well and the "creek don't rise," we should be done sometime on Wednesday.

"If all goes well ..." I don't think I'll count on that.

We are ready to put Wheat Harvest 2016 in the rearview mirror.

Living Dangerously - Country Style

Living dangerously - country style:  Your husband goes to a farm auction with the checkbook while you're at a meeting.

It just may lead to a farm fleet expansion. Randy bought a new-to-us combine at a Pratt County farm auction on Tuesday. He purchased a 2010 7120 Case combine, along with a 2011 35-foot flex head header and a trailer to pull the header.

And, just so you know, we DID talk about it before he went, so it wasn't a total surprise. He had a price in mind and doubted it would buy the equipment. However, with a depressed farm economy right now, the price for used machinery is down.

He says he got a good deal. My dad and brother concur, so it must be true. (Either that or the farmers are sticking together.)

The new combine is 16 years newer than the combine we'd been using for 14 years. (We bought that one at a farm auction is 2002.)  The combine has 1,500 engine hours, compared to 3,800 on our old combine.

It has many more bells and whistles. It's our first piece of equipment that has GPS, other than our portable Garmin in the car, which loves telling us "recalculating." I don't think that's a feature of this version: Randy hopes not!

At least he didn't get that message on the drive home. It took him 1 1/2 hours at 23 miles an hour on country back roads to get the combine home. Ironically, along the way, he pulled over to let a tractor pass. It turned out to be a neighbor who was taking a similar route, driving a tractor home after getting it repaired at a Pratt dealership. That's our version of a country traffic jam, I guess.

Randy has a lot of reading ahead trying to figure out all the features. One of the sellers was a high school classmate of mine. He generously spent some time showing Randy the ropes.

But still, Randy has a little "light reading" ahead with four new manuals. Randy already loves harvest. I have a feeling he'll be even more excited this year!

Off Like a Herd of Turtles: Wheat Harvest 2015

Caution: Harvest complications ahead!

Harvest 2015 finally started on the County Line Saturday afternoon after another visit from the mechanic. I made a trip for parts on Saturday afternoon, and Randy made another one Sunday morning.

And I think we are finally off like a herd of turtles. Maybe I should say we're off like a mischief of mice. (That's what one online source calls a "herd" of mice. The mice or packrats definitely caused mischief in the combine wiring.)

But, actually, the guys got a good amount cut yesterday afternoon. Jake had the combine apart by the time Randy got back. Once I delivered the noon meal (which was closer to 1), it only took them 10 minutes to get everything back together.

My eternal optimist says that we're 1/10th done with harvest. I guess that's one way to look at it.

"Rain makes grain," as the guys at the coffee shop say. And while this crop is not going to be a bumper crop for us, the May rains definitely helped fill the wheat heads. After a dry fall, winter and early spring, the May rains were a God-send toward making respectable yields.

As we were waiting for the fields to dry out from last week's rains, it seemed like harvest was late. But, in reality, it's about average for the past few years:

2010:  June 18
2011:  June 10
2012:  May 26 (an anomaly and the earlier harvest, by far, we've ever had)
2013:  June 21
2014:  June 17
2015:  June 20

Here's hoping for a breakdown-free day today!

Hiatus Over? Not So Fast ...

It had been about 188 hours since we'd cut any wheat during Harvest 2014. A week and another 3/4 of a day was the longest hiatus either Randy or I could remember during a wheat harvest during his 58 years or my 57 years on Kansas farms. (Yikes, I'm still adjusting to saying that after my birthday last Friday.) The year I was born, 1957, the harvest was also slowed by rains. My Dad didn't have to get off the combine to come to the hospital for my birth. He was already at a standstill.

We only had one 42-acre field that we could cut yesterday afternoon. Randy got the 4-wheeler stuck while checking another field. That was enough to convince him not to pull his combine into that field.

Overnight, we got another 0.60" of rain. Six weeks ago, we'd have loved listening to rain hit the roof as we went to bed. I'd be lying if I said we had the same reaction last night, despite my repeated affirmations that I won't complain about rain.

I've always liked taking photos by this old silo. To me, it says quintessential farm scene. At first, I cropped the weeds in the foreground out of the shot. Farmers aren't big fans of weeds, and my husband is no exception. But, then, I decided I needed to leave them there to tell the story of Wheat Harvest 2014.

The rains are great for corn crops and alfalfa. But weeds like the rains, too. The wheat was thinner this year due to the drought during its growing season, so it didn't provide as good a canopy to keep the weeds small.

A week ago, we had the co-op spray for weeds in one of our wheat fields. At the time, Randy was somewhat concerned about the week-long moratorium on harvesting the wheat after the weed treatment. He needn't have worried about it. We have passed the deadline, and we still won't be cutting the wheat today.

We aren't alone. The weekly USDA report says that most of the state's farmers are facing short wheat, muddy fields and weed pressure. The USDA reported that 40 percent of the state's wheat crop has been harvested as of Monday, slightly behind the 50 percent that had been harvested at this point last year and well behind the 66 percent average.

Little yellow flowers in a wheat field may look picturesque to a casual observer. But since they thrive in mud holes, they just signal another challenge to a farmer. And, once it dries out enough to cut, they don't smell the best going through the combine either.

Randy says we are about 60 percent done with our harvest. Today will be another day of waiting. 

And So It Begins

Wheat harvest 2014 has officially begun. I got my first ride on the combine this season after delivering supper to the field last night.

I was not the only spectator there. This doe was checking out the commotion in her usually quiet environment.

Kim's County Line gives me a diary of our harvest start times since 2010:

2010:  June 18
2011:  June 10
2012:  May 26 (the earliest harvest either Randy or I have ever experienced)
2013:  June 21
2014:  June 17

Randy earned his paycheck last night. Because of the drought, the wheat is short this year, so he has to run the header close to the ground.

And, ironically, he also had to battle mud from our recent rains. (Just to be clear, we're not complaining!) He had to back out of a few places, but other times, he was twisting and turning the combine wheel and gunning the engine like a race car driver maneuvering through traffic in his effort to keep from getting stuck.

Sunspots added dimension to the wheat as the combine disappeared into the horizon like a cowboy riding into the sunset in one of those old Western movies.

And so it begins.

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I'm linked to the Country Fair Blog Hop hosted by Tales of a Kansas Farm Mom, Dirt Road Charm and High Heels and Shot Gun Shells and Country Linked. Click on the links to check out their blogs. 

Like A Good Neighbor

"Like a good neighbor, Gary is there."

I can't speak from personal experience for the insurance company that originally used the jingle, but there is truth in advertising for my variation.

Gary Hornbaker and his crew (C.W. Feril, Tom Turner and Nick Mansel) helped us harvest wheat the last couple of days. Gary is the definition of a good neighbor.

When the ice storm took power lines down in 2007, we were without electricity for 12 days. Miraculously, Gary still had power, though he lives less than 3 miles away. He even gave up his bedroom so that we could stay at his house. We eventually got a generator and didn't take advantage of his hospitality for the whole nearly two-week stint.

The 2007 storm may have resulted in one of my all-time favorite photos, but it definitely wasn't a favorite time!

 So, did it surprise me when Gary was willing to cut a good portion of our remaining wheat? Nope, it didn't. You can hear the story of the Good Samaritan told from the pulpit or study it in a Sunday School class. But I know someone who lives it. Yes, he was done with his own harvest. But he sure wasn't done with a dozen other things that need to be done during summer on the farm.

He could have crossed to the other side of the road. But he didn't. We might not have been "bleeding" ourselves, but the combine had its own "ambulance" ride to the Straub's dealership in Hutchinson.

I don't really understand all the ins and outs of what's wrong with our combine.  There is a bearing out on the feeder house drive. To repair it, you have to remove one of the massive tires to get the shaft out. Some other mystery part ended up on the elevator grate when Jake dumped one of our loads at the Zenith branch of the Kanza Co-op. The guys still don't know where it came from, and Randy hasn't heard that verdict from Straub's yet. So, no matter that Randy had made two trips to Hutchinson, one trip to Great Bend and I made one parts run to Pratt, we were finally to the place that we couldn't limp along any longer. We faced facts: The combine wasn't going to be fixed on the farm.

There's a sinking in your stomach when you realize that part of a wheat crop is going to sit in the field while you wait on a combine repair. Wheat is our primary crop. It's what pays the bills around here. Ripe wheat sitting in a field doesn't improve with age, unlike fine wine.

Gary cut 291 acres of our wheat. Before all this happened, we had already scheduled a custom cutter to cut wheat at a location we call "up north." It's quite a distance for our little farm trucks to haul the 30-mile round trip  to Zenith, so we've had it custom harvested the last few years. Crockett Harvesting will cut it on Friday, so we're still not done with Harvest 2013. But we are oh-so-much closer than we would have been if we would have had to wait for our combine to be fixed.

Monday evening, Gary was cutting across the road from our house. This summer, I've taken several trips across the road to photograph the sunset. I'd been watching the sun slide down the power poles like a quarter in one of those cylindrical banks.

I'd been thinking about the photos I'd take when we cut the wheat there. The combine with cab lights gleaming would be silhouetted against that beautiful Kansas sky.

Well, I didn't think I could call a Good Samaritan to tell him to turn on his cab lights (like I would have my husband). But, it was still a mighty pretty picture - for a whole lot more reasons than a sunset sky. (And, for the record, I'm sure Gary would have turned on his lights if I'd asked.)

And, I knew it was only a matter of time that the lights would have to come on as Gary cut long into the night (or, more accurately, the early morning).

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the sky changed again, and so did the harvest scene as he rounded the power pole yet again, this time with lights cutting the dusk. I think there's a metaphor there somewhere.

Of course, we are paying Gary for his unscheduled custom harvesting job. However, no check and no amount of homemade bierocks and pasta salad (or grilled hamburgers and baked beans) toted to the harvest field a couple of evenings could begin to say a heartfelt thanks. His willingness to help his neighbors is, quite simply, priceless.

Remember that advertising jingle? Well, I've also been mixing in a chorus of Joe Diffie's song, John Deere Green. I grew up with green machinery. It's been 32 years of seeing red (so to speak) on the County Line. I'm sure my Dad and brother will have a comment or two about that.

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I'm linked today to Jennifer Dukes Lee's Tell His Story. Click on the link to check out what bloggers of faith are talking about today!