It has rained two more times since my last post, but we got a few good days in. They switched back to wheat so were able to go late into the night for a couple of nights. Our nephew and his friend are here this week so the guys decided to cut the place that is difficult to haul out of where the trucks have trouble keeping up since we had the extra help. That was a good plan! M and J figure they had a record day cutting 20,000 bushels of wheat in a day. M thinks it is the best crop he's ever cut with his average never going under 55 bushels to the acre all day. M's sister is here, too, and spent a day in the combine. She picked a good day to do that. Too bad the wheat is bleached to some degree and the elevators are severely discounting the price. Every rain affects the quality....and the general mood and morale of our crew.
We didn't want our visitors to get bored so we enlisted their help for a couple of projects. M bought a small Quonset-type storage building from a guy in Richland who was moving but has been pondering for a year how to get it moved here. They lifted it up and got it on a trailer and hauled it here and set it on railroad ties. M says there was a lot of luck involved in the process, but it's here now. It may be the home for the Jeep for the winter.
Yesterday we preg checked our heifers. We found out on Tuesday that the vet was going to be in the area, but M was afraid to commit at that time in case we could get back to harvest. There was really no drying on Wednesday and it was still muddy and cloudy yesterday morning so he called the vet right away to see if he could still do it in the afternoon. Then we scrambled to get ready. We had to round up the heifers which was a bit of an adventure. The pasture they were in is a bugger to gather from with bogs and coulees and trees to hide in. First thing, we had cross a bog on foot to chase some out. Hard to stay on the bumps, and I got wet feet right away. Felt lucky that I didn't break an ankle! Then they circled and hid in some trees and some were in another bog. To make a long story short, it took a lot longer than it really should have. Then once we got them out of the pasture we had to make a few jogs to try to keep them out of the wheat that hasn't been cut yet. That went pretty smoothly but took some time. K made us a great lunch and delivered it to the barn. Sawyer was happy to see the dogs and the cows, and we were happy to see her.
We had a hard frost overnight. I had covered my cukes, but they still don't look too good. The frost shouldn't bother the crops too much except for some late oats. We'll probably end up haying them, and no one is looking forward to hauling those bales home. M and R spent most of the day hauling the hailed out wheat bales and discovered that the fields are pretty soft, and just not drying out very fast. We had some sun and wind today, but we could really use some sustained heat. Too bad they can't send us some of that record heat they're having in California.
We keep plugging along, but this harvest is just unbelievable. We haven't cut an acre in the past four days, and we need to get back to it soon.
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