Harvest 2012

   I have been doing a little more than keeping an eye on the wind workers.  Fence building and fence removal are at the fore front.  But harvest got in the way.  I don’t have anything to harvest yet, but I have helped friends with their harvest for years and I went again this year.

     My job this year was to shepherd the trucks.

      My truck is the old one of the bunch, the Dodge, but the newest piece of equipment I own—a 1969 Dodge.

       Most of the time, I hauled to the bins on the farm.

      When the bins started to fill up, it was necessary to haul to town.  Several other farms were hauling to town, too.  So, truck drivers spend a lot of time waiting in line.

 

     Sometimes there is something interesting to watch.

     Here, a daring young man applies patches to the metal tube that channels grain from the top of the elevator to the storage building. 

      Or you can visit with others in line.  Many of the trucks belong to custom harvesters.  They have the air conditioner running and are content to sit inside the cab.  Not conducive to conversation.   

       Four years ago, I began reading “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin to occupy the waiting time in the elevator line and in the field as I wait for combines to fill the truck.  I didn’t quite finish it this year.  Maybe next year.

    Meanwhile, back at the farm, the combines rolled on.

 

     That is, until they break down.  This time, the combine engine fan bearing failed, allowing the fan blades to whack a chunk out of the radiator.  Downtime was about a day and a half, with a 100+ mile trip to get the new bearing.  A local shop repaired the radiator.  It could have been much worse.

     Other things that interrupt the harvest are weather.  Not much of that this year.  What looked like a promising thunderstorm (it’s so dry most farmers would welcome an inch or two of rain during harvest) turned out to be smoke from the forest fire near Colorado Springs, about 100 miles away.

   

   But things worked out and harvest is just about done. It was the earliest harvest I can ever remember, almost done before we usually start (first or second week of July).  It has also been the hottest, with many days going over a hundred degrees, plus the usual wind.

     It is done for me.  Clean up the truck (get all the stray grain out so the mice won’t have anything to eat and maybe won’t nest in the truck cab) and put the truck back into the shed. 

      A favorite mouse-nesting place is under the lower door hinge.  On the step, removed for cleaning, maintenance supplies:  power steering fluid (blue bottle), two gallons of water, and brake fluid.

      Back to the fence.