The Helpers

 

"Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

Fred Rogers

As we've completed our final cattle roundups and the associated tasks this fall, I've thought of the helpers more than once.

Even though farming and ranching may seem a solitary job, there are many others who quietly help get the jobs done. 

Sometimes, they are the people on your payroll, though we haven't had that for a couple of years now. 

They may be neighbors who help out with cattle drives or finish a wheat field when your combine breaks down. 

Dr. Bruce Figger preg-checking our cow herd, November 16, 2021

It may be the veterinarian who helps keep your herd healthy. 

Dr. Bruce, giving vaccinations, November 16, 2021

It may be the semi truck driver who, year after year, hauls your calves to the sale barn.

Darrell Harner with Harner Trucking, Sylvia - November 10, 2021

 

It's a bonus that he knew your parents, so you can stand around and reminisce while the air builds up ...

... then deliver the load safely to the sale barn.

It's the sale barn personnel and the auctioneer who get your cattle sold for the best price possible.

Pratt Livestock Sale, November 11, 2021 - selling our feeder calves (born during the winter of 2021)

It's the co-op employees who fufill so many tasks all year - from applying fertilizer, to delivering fuel, to weighing trucks to dumping trucks in the elevator (and so many more jobs).

And, of course, it's the family members who do whatever job needs doing at whatever time it needs to be done - sometimes in the shadows.

 - and who sometimes dodge "organic matter" from the business end of the cow while keeping good records.

This just scratches the surface. There are so many people and organizations that have made a difference in our lives and livelihoods throughout the years - from parts counter guys who know your name to the seed dealers. The list goes on and on.

Even though we are saying goodbye to some of the day-to-day work, there will still be "helpers" and partnerships. That's the nature of living in a rural community.

The end of an era - waving goodbye to our feeder calves.

I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.

-- Fred Rogers

 

We are thankful.

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.

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.

***

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!