Even the grasshoppers...

...hate this heat.

When it's this hot, the grasshoppers find any shade they can. Today, that shade was in the form of the other side of the fence post ;-)

Laughter in the Swather

I went to adjust the swather seat yesterday and found this wonderful illustration. I don't know how many 150 kilograms was, but from the picture, I'm guessing it is more than I weigh...cracked me up!

Ok, now I'll get serious. I often get asked what the difference is between a swather and a combine. Basically, a combine is a more advanced swather. A swather is simply used to cut a crop and lay it down in a wind row so the baler can gather is up easier. A combine threshes it to keep only the seed in a bin and spits everything out the back and it is all spread out, not in a row. I was swathing oats the past two days and dad will bale them up in either round or square bales for our cattle this winter and spring.

Harvest 2012

We finished our harvest successfully and we didn't have a single breakdown! If you know much about farming (and especially our family) you know that making it through a harvest without a breakdown is a HUGE accomplishment. Our fields did well and, all things being considered, the wheat was much better than I thought it might be.

I drove the combine for harvest and our high school worker drove the graincart/tractor. My parents weren't quite as entertained by our conversations on the radio as we were ;-)

The hardest part about running combine is all of the stuff I have to do with one hand. This joystick controls the speed, direction (as in forwards or reverse), the header height, the reel height and the auger in/out, along with turning the unloading auger on and off....phew! The header height has to be adjusted while cutting because the wheat is different heights throughout the field and we need to make sure we cut as much wheat as we can.

This is what happens when I try to multi-task a little too much ;-) This is while we were unloading on the go and I was trying to cut the wheat, unload in the moving graincart and also video the whole thing. Maybe wasn't the wisest choice!

I guess we did have one small problem with our header...but have no fear, dad fixed it with the good ol' farmer stand-by. Gorilla tape (it's like duct tape, but dad says it's way stronger).

We had a lot of wind during harvest (I think we had one or two days without it). However, one day it was a huge problem. We were in a field next to another one that had been worked and it was blowing like crazy. We unloaded while stopped, but we were still having issues.

It was interesting trying to cut through the dirt.

Like I said though, all dirt aside, it was a great harvest with lots of productivity and lots of laughter. Praise God!

My silly dog

Sometimes harvest gets a little monotonous, so last night I loaded up my dog, along with the food for supper, and headed to the wheat field. This car seat is where Zandie very intentionally placed herself when we prepared to leave the field.

 I couldn't stop laughing because she usually doesn't do stuff like this and she was just so pleased with herself. My sister always says Zandie looks miserable and sad in the pictures I take. Not this one! You can definitely see how proud she was of her idea. However, after one or two bumps she decided the car seat wasn't exactly suited for a four-legged child ;-)

Untold Stories

There are a lot of jobs on a farm/ranch that you often don't think about, but they are nonetheless important to the operation.

One such job this past week was to clean out a tank in the corrals next to my house. I'm not sure the last time it had been cleaned out.

After gagging several times because of the wonderful smells (just think of rotten eggs...plural), our high school worker came up with a solution that sort of worked for him. My only advice was that if he threw up, it was supposed to be outside the tank because I was not cleaning it up ;-) He chose to think of the "muck" as oil. Sure didn't smell like it, but when you know that the stuff splashing up and hitting you in the face contains many things including cow poop, oil seems like a great alternative.

Never a good sign when your shovel looks like this afterwards. The tank above might not look that clean, but trust me, it is MUCH better. We will allow it to dry out and possibly see if we can clean it some more before we fill it up with water again.

It might not be glorious, but it is a necessary job that needed done. That pretty much sums up the life of a farmer/rancher.

Buildin' Some Fence

Most of our barbed wire fence on our property is literally older than my dad and through many years of heavy use it has started to fall apart. That means we are building fence this summer. These pictures illustrate how we do it.

After drilling the hole with our incredibly old tractor (it's from the 1960s), we drop the post in, get it the right height, make sure it's straight and then tamp it in. The "tamping" bar we use is actually some sort of part from an old tractor. It works perfectly to pack down the dirt around the post. We put about 2 inches of dirt in the hole, pack it down, add more dirt, pack it down and keep repeating the process until the hole is filled.

The most challenging part of this is actually driving the tractor. It's a great tractor and has served our family well since it was purchased brand new. However, it barely steers (you can literally turn and turn the steering wheel and it won't turn unless you do it just right) and it has issues shifting into the forward gears. I'm usually pretty sore after running it for a couple of hours.

The corner post was the first post we set because it will keep everything nice and tight. To do it we set two posts with a piece of metal wedged between them and two wires to keep the posts pulled in tight.

Since there was a slight hill where we were building the fence, dad improvised to be able to see so he could line up his posts.

After putting a post in the middle of the fence line, we used the scope on dad's 17 rifle to make sure we were lined up (don't worry, dad made sure to remove all of the bullets before we did this).

All this being said, I'm known for my ability to make any fence I build completely crooked. So...despite all the preparations, it more than likely won't be the prettiest fence ever. My only consolation is that at least it will look better than the old one ;-)

God's Goodness

Even when we are in a drought like we are in now, God provides us with constant reminders of the life that He creates.

Our pastures are suffering greatly right now, so we will have to keep a close eye on the remaining grass to graze our cattle on. We keep praying for rain but also have to prepare for the lack of it.

My dad's sense of optimism is always amazing to me. I tend to focus on the negatives and worry about the future. Dad sees positives when others might not. He encouraged me to take a picture of these flowers. We call them Bachelor's Buttons. God is amazing! Even when the earth is dry as a bone, these flowers add a little bit of cheerfulness to a very bleak picture.