Light rains came to the farm during the week, but we weren’t kept out of the fields for long. We made some good progress on harvest, and finished Saturday night with the start of popcorn harvest.
Harvest Weather
Wet weather has made harvest slow, but fall always offers up some picture-worthy sights.
A nice shot of soybeans being loaded on a truck. Too bad I didn’t have a real camera on hand to do the moon justice. A few minutes before this shot it was huge!
https://storify.com/thefarmerslife/grain-cart-sunset
Commuting to Work
Stuck in traffic. That moment when your combine has to wait on the neighbor’s combine to get through the intersection.
Coworkers
Harvest crew is ready to roll! The combine and grain cart are eager to get some more corn out of the fields and into storage! Recently I wrote about some improvements we made to the cart. Check out “Great Grain Cart Improvements.”
Family Matters
I get my dinner delivered to me in the field some nights. My trainee spends some time in the cab learning how everything works. If you meet him, he’ll tell you how it is!
Store it Right
I can’t remember not having this grain moisture tester. Maybe it’s even older than I am. It still works just fine though. Grain needs to be stored at certain moisture contents so it will keep for long periods of time. This tester is a very important tool on our farm.
More Wheat
We chose to plant 60 more acres of wheat this week. We will have about 140 acres this year. The most we’ve had for quite a while.
Extra Steps for Perfect Popcorn
https://storify.com/thefarmerslife/popcorn-cleanout
When delivering popcorn we have to show up with a pure product. Just a few grains of regular corn in a sample will get your truck sent back home. All the harvest equipment is thoroughly cleaned before we start popcorn harvest. The same thing happens when we harvest the soybeans we raise for two seed companies.
Rain is forecasted for Monday and Tuesday of the coming week. We’ll just have to see what comes. We really don’t need the rain right now. Our soils are wet enough. We have to leave some crop in parts of a few fields that are too wet to drive on right now. I’ve left some good ruts in other places that will have to delt with later. It won’t take much rain for nearly saturated soils to get just plain muddy and keep us out of the fields for several days. This could be a long and late harvest in a hurry. Keep coming back to see what happens.
I remember my dad having a grain moisture tester just like this one! I bet it’s still around somewhere!