Transition

From Reno, we headed to my parents house - to help with harvest, for deer hunting, and since everyone was going to be home, have our family Thanksgiving.

There's still quite a bit a corn in the fields in northern Illinois. It's coming out at a steady pace, but it will be about another 2 weeks before we're done. All that corn in the neighbors fields also provided plenty of hiding spots for deer. Ron, Erik, and Troy all came up empty handed, but Nathan was able to get himself a 10-point buck.

Ron spent quite a bit of time in the combine, rather than the deer stand, which by the way, was probably warmer than being stuck in the tree all day.

I got a trip with dad to Bunge in on Saturday. We truck our corn to the rail, to the river, ADM, local elevators, or store it on farm. Agri-Bunge is on the Mississippi River and is about an hour - round trip (if there isn't a wait). Here are a few pics from earlier this fall and one from this last weekend.

100 Combines

This is an email I received awhile back that I found in my inbox yesterday. How great is this?


100 Combines

Record setting harvest was done in 2008, in Norton, Kansas 160 acres was harvested with 100 combines and several grain trucks in 10 minutes and 15 seconds.

This record will be entered in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Proceeds of this crop is to be sent to a kids camp.

Thats how we get it done in Kansas.

(A great photo for the John Deere fans out there!)

Batter Up (Or Something Like That)

After last week's post on harvest, my mom thought it was funny to send me the line up for working at home this week. Believe me, that is quite a crew. No "position" designations, although it looks like Nathan may be getting the short end of the stick. I hope that means he doesn't get stuck driving the Red Pete (more to come on this later this week, let's just say no one but dad likes driving that semi).


That's guite an employee organizational sheet isn't it? You may also notice that dad remembered Monday is mom's day to babysit Madison....see how easy this method works to revamp plans on the fly?

Shiftwork

2500 hundred acres doesn't get harvested overnight, or in a week or in even two. It takes time...and that's if everything goes your way. Mother Nature always seems to think she needs to make her presence known. Break downs will cease all activity. And of course, tractors don't drive themselves (well most don't anyway). It takes a lot of time, people, and effort to run a farm.

For most of the year, my dad takes care of business himself. Throw in the cow-calf operation and he's busy from sun up until sun down. When harvest rolls around, the crew around the Cook Farm drastically increases. And it varies from week to week. Friends, family, and seasonal help all help make sure harvest gets done.

We laugh at home because dad will sit at the kitchen table and scratch out who's going to be there the next day along with what they're going to be doing. I wish I would have gotten a photo or two of one of these lists. There's no replicating the real thing but they'd go something like this:

Dave
Doug-S
Ron-C
Kelly-C
Darryl-H
Nathan-M
Steve-T

Doesn't it kind of remind you of a batting order? And then there's the positions. Only Dad knows that those mean - Semi at home, combine, cart, Hilldale semi, Milledgeville semi, turbo-till. You don't want to be at the end of the batting order - you might get stuck with a crappy job.

We were pretty lucky to be at the top of the "batting order". Our "positions" never changed. Of course that meant that Ron spent the better part of 12 hours in the combine each day. Just like shiftwork....

My Ride

My job during harvest - driving the grain cart. My daylight hours were spent in the cab of this tractor.

It's not a bad job, I must admit. Follow the combine, when they need to unload, you're there and when the grain cart is full, you take it to the semi. Now, I'm not quite the speed racer as described by Farming Fabulously, but I think I do an above average job.

The great thing about my week in the tractor this year -- a new grain cart. Now there was nothing wrong with the old one, but the new one is AWESOME!



What's so darn neat about this grain cart? The video cameras! There are 2 cameras on the cart. One is at the back of the cart so you can see what's behind you. Which isn't entirely necessary when you're in the field, but when we're moving fields, its great to be able to see what's behind you on the road. The second camera is at the top of the auger spout - I can see directly into the semi when unloading. Its a little hard to get a good read on depth, but very fun to use. Not the greatest photos, but you still get the idea.

On a Roll

The combine's out, the semi trucks are lined up and the bins are clean. I guess we can say that harvest has officially started for us. It's going to be awhile before the couple thousand acres are done, so this is the beginning of a very long fall.

Dad started beans over the weekend. We're not heading north to help harvest for almost three weeks, so I guess he's going to have to make do with the help he has -- like this little girl.



I'm sure he's glad for the company, and she's sure a cutie-pie to look at, but she's got a ways to go before she can reach the pedals. And we know that this little tractor isn't going to haul that much grain.