The Load Nobody Wanted

     “The dirty *******s!  They’re not open!”

      It was Saturday morning.  We approached the elevator scale with 500 bushels of wheat on the 1969 Dodge truck. 

     No wonder there were no trucks waiting in a nice orderly line, none on the scale, none sitting over the grate in the elevator proper.  There was nobody around, doors all closed.

     I had dumped a load just 24 hours earlier, with no warning that the elevator would not be open Saturday.  Now what to do? 

     I tried futiley to reach someone on my cell phone.  Chester pulled up beside us.  He recognized the truck and came over to see what he could do to help us.  His phone calls were more fruitful than mine, but no more helpful in solving our predicament.

      All the elevators were full and closed, or close to full, and we would be taking a gamble to drive at least another ten miles with a good chance of being turned away.  I asked Chester if he had a spare bin, half-jokingly, knowing they had just finished a good harvest.

     He said they might.  They had one that would need a little cleaning, but it was at our disposal if we needed it.

     The loathsome load of wheat nobody wanted headed back to the farm where it would sit until Sunday evening.  Our bin still had room, so the first priority was to harvest what we could.  We cut wheat all day Saturday hauling to the grain bin with the GMC 150 bushels per load.

      Sunday morning, we headed to Limon.  Nobody answered the phone at the Limon terminal, but sure enough the place was open.  The manager said he was filling up and would start turning away trucks when he got full.  Call before you bring the truck. 

       When we called, it was the same old story—get in line and take your chance.  No thanks.

      Over to Chester’s bin we went.  It’s an eleven-mile trip.  It needed a good sweeping, but it was empty, nearly.  That was our best option.  (We discussed dumping on the ground, but getting it loaded up again would be a real chore.)

      About 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon, our bin was full, the Dodge sat rejected, loaded, in the penalty box of the farmyard where it had been since Saturday morning.  The GMC had its 150 bushel load.  Nothing to do but go sweep out a bin. 

     We loaded up the 4X4 with shovels, buckets, brooms, a ladder.  I drove the pariah wheat load and we arrived for the second time at the bin. 

     The bin had held millet, a fine grain with lots of dust.  We were equipped with respirators.  This bin has a pit under it, meaning it has a cone shaped cement base extending down into mother earth for six or eight feet.  The idea of a pit beneath a grain bin was to reduce the need to shovel.  The steep pit walls allow the grain to slide to the bottom. 

      A 12-inch tube paralleling the pit walls allows an auger to be lowered into the bottom of the pit.  That auger raises the grain to ground level where it dumps into another auger, which takes the grain into a truck.  All this without manning a scoop shovel, the time-tested way of handling grain.

      Standing on the steep pit walls while running a broom proved a challenge.  It can’t be any harder than roofing, I thought. But I couldn’t stand up without sliding down into the pit bottom.  When I first slid down to the bottom, I thought there was spoiled grain in the point of the cone.  It proved to be liquid, a foul-smelling liquid, which brings up a second problem with pits:  they seem always to leak and collect water in the bottom of the cone.

      A small bucket used as a dipper, a larger bucket on a rope removed the bilge water.  Sweeping the top portions of the pit wall wasn’t going too well, however.

      Chester came along when we were about half done.  He asked if we needed a ladder.  It dawned on both of us that we had brought a ladder.  We could lay it down in the pit and use it to stand on.  Well duh!

      Using the ladder the sweeping was soon done.  A few more bucketsful dipped out of the tip of the cone, this time dust and millet residue, and the bin was clean.  Chester set the auger over the bin and hooked the tractor up and the bin was ready.   But we weren’t.  It was 7:30 p.m. Sunday evening.  The Dodge would have to bear its rejected load one more night.

     Monday morning found us in the GMC headed for the bin.  The Dodge finally got to dump the load it had carried since Friday evening.  The Dodge would visit that bin three more times by Wednesday afternoon, the GMC five times before we wore out the 2016 harvest about 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

      In terms of yield, it is the best crop I have ever raised, coming in at over 40 bushels to the acre.  The quality is not the best at eight-to-nine percent protein. 

     It was a good harvest, but it did have its frustrations, the biggest being what to do with all the grain.  The golf cart went down just before the combine was out of the shed.  It awaits my attention.

        I had to replace the fuel pump on the Versatile swather to get it started and out of the way of the combine.  Neighborly was over Sunday when I was working on the swather.  He was pretty worried that I didn’t have the combine out of the shed yet.  I think he knew the wheat was ready to cut—our first load cut Tuesday testd 8% moisture, well below the 13% maximum moisture.

      The combine fuel pump needed some tinkering to get it to work.  Monday afternoon, the battery on the 4X4 retired itself.  Dodge Dakota substituted nicely for the 4X4 in the pinch.

    On the other hand, the old combine and the trucks behaved themselves nicely the whole time.  The heavy wheat dictated slow ground travel. We were taking out loads of wheat, but not covering much ground.  It was the slowest harvest in getting it completed, especially when you consider we had none of the weather delays we usually have.

     Harvest done, it’s time for a rain and a little help from the market.  Wheat prices have slid below $3.  Since I have no control over either of those factors, I plan to attack the weeds in the summer fallow.  There’s still next year.