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Life on the Farm
bjrogg:
Yes I know exactly where you are coming from Pappy. It’s all good when it works and totally frustrating when it doesn’t.
I still get to fix the mechanical stuff too. My combine made a clink noise and started bellowing smoke out the exhaust. I quickly shut it down. Looked it over and at first couldn’t see anything wrong. Ended up a stainless steel clamp broke for the boost line on turbo.
We finished up wheat Sunday. It was just really starting to go good.
Typical wheat harvest around here. You have to start about two days before the wheat is dry enough to harvest. We grind the green straw through the combine and take the wheat to the elevator. It has very good quality like this but difficult to harvest. Then by day three when everything is perfect and the combines can make good time. The elevators are stuffed full of wet wheat they need to dry and can only take the wheat as fast as they can dry it. The lines get very long and it gets really hard to keep empty trucks available for the combines. If the weather holds that last about two days and everyone starts bringing dry wheat. The elevator has room for dry wheat and the lines get shorter. The combines cruse and the trucks quickly make their round trip.
Everything is running like clockwork and then it rains. The humidity goes up and the wheat that isn’t harvested yet wants to sprout standing in the field yet. As soon as it starts to think about sprouting the starch converts and the falling numbers go down (not milling quality anymore).
Sure does put the stress on what would otherwise be an enjoyable harvest.
All in all we did good. We had a few loads that had deductions for numbers right on the edge. One load that was feed wheat. Many that were just above deductions.
I’m so relieved that our wheat is harvested. It truly is the most stressful and risky crop we grow. And we grow some pretty risky crops.
Finished just in time. Just finished the last of it and was blowing off the combine with leaf blower when a little shower came through. Warm and humid. I’m sure that any wheat left will be feed wheat now. I really don’t know why we grow this stuff. I can’t tell you how many times this same scenario has happened. Or that we were a day a or two away from being done when the rain came and we were left with feed wheat.
Bjrogg
bjrogg:
The last pass of wheat to harvest.
bjrogg:
Just in time.
Bjrogg
bjrogg:
It appears every time I get to a new page I can’t see or reply from that page. I have to reply from a previous page. Hopefully after a few replies on that new page I can then see it and reply again
Bjrogg
bjrogg:
Yep that worked I’m back.
Bjrogg
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