The Silence of the Windmills

     Rise up and look about.  That’s what you do out on the old flat plain when you get up in the morning.  What direction will the wind blow from today? 

     In olden times, you had to search for some sort of weather vane to find the wind direction.  In these modern times, a quick glance out the window suffices.  The windmills, like sunflowers, all face the same direction.   The windmills face into the wind.

     Sunday a week ago, that early morning glance indicated zero breeze conditions.  Not a mill was turning anywhere.

       A couple of hours later, as we set out to continue the wheat harvest we had resumed only the day before, a northerly surface breeze prevailed.  Yet nary a mill turned.  Hmmm.  Highly unusual.  It doesn’t happen very often that the wind blows below and it’s calm above, and no windmills turning.

      Sure enough, the chaff and rust and dust swirled about the combine as I progressed across the field, and still no motion from the wind machinery.  A Sherlock Holmes deduction:  somebody shut the windmills off, probably to make a connection with the new substation just built.

     The stoppage lasted till Tuesday afternoon.  At night, it was just like the old days—no noise, no red lights.  You could step outside in the dark and see stars from horizon to horizon.

     By Wednesday morning, things were back to normal.  The noisy neighbors were back.  But it only takes a glance to see what direction the wind is blowing.

      2014 Harvest.  Harvest began on Thursday December 10.  A minor breakdown on Friday marred an otherwise good day.  On Saturday, everything lurched to a halt when a bearing in the combine’s clutch drive disintegrated.  Saturday evening, the cold damp weather came to roost.

     A big disadvantage of running ancient machinery is the unavailability of parts.  Bearings ordered on Monday arrived on Tuesday.  Removing an old bearing from the clutch-drive shaft destroyed a half moon key.  That key, scheduled to arrive on Wednesday morning, showed up Tuesday afternoon.  Thus it was the combine was restored to running order on Wednesday afternoon.     

      To while away the time, we broke out the old John Deere 55.  However, somehow a mouse managed to build a nest in the lower radiator hose.  Filling the radiator with water and starting the engine spread trash throughout the cooling system.  As a result, the poor old thing heated up nearly every time we started it.  It never got to the field.  But it did get a good airing, getting out of the shed for the first time since 1990.

        The weather straightened out enough that harvest cold resume on Saturday, July 19.  It ended on Monday, July 21.  Yield this year was twice last year’s (11 bushels to the acre last year, 23 bushels / acre this year).  Nothing to write home about but good enough to put in a blog, I guess.     

     This year’s crop had a good deal of black rust.  The dark spots in the stubble that look like muddy spots are really where the combine started up and dumped the rust dust that accumulated in the machine while it was stopped during unloading the grain bin.

     The job is done and the grain is in the bin.