Feeding America, Day 8 of Harvest 2011

Coming home tonight I got behind a combine on highway 95, so now I know harvest has officially started on the Palouse, here in North Idaho.  

On Thursday we harvested about 200 acres of winter wheat and have a little over 100+ acres left.   Again we will not know what this field is yielding until all the weight tickets are totaled.  Once this field is done, Farmer Jay will stay in Tammany with his “level-land combine” as the ground is flat and Farmer Joe will move his “self-leveling combine” up to the Genesee farm as our ground has the “rolling hills of the Palouse".  Farmer Jay, Cody (our hired man), Ryan (our summer high school help) will be Jay’s crew down at Tammany.  Farmer Joe will start on the winter wheat fields at the Genesee farm and we will have to hire 2 temporary people to help drive the other semi trucks and the other grain cart.  Luckily we have a recently retired friend, Hale, who is willing to drive the grain cart and hopefully our hired man’s dad, Roger, can take some vacation time from his job and drive the semi trucks.   
The colors of the crops this time of year are so varied, as you can see below.  This year we planted a new variety of hard red spring wheat that has a very distinct color.

Our green garbanzo field is along side our reddish color wheat and the neighbors
golden wheat field

Here are two wheat fields along side each other, the reddish color
is our hard red spring wheat along side the normal golden color

Once again, thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions.  All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 1 of Harvest 2011

It’s harvest time and there is a certain smell in the air that I can’t explain, but it is fresh and earthy.  Farmer Joe was excited to get into the field and begin cutting, (it’s a lot like the first day of school as for excitement level), and so as I packed his lunch, the dog and I sent him off with well wishes..... 

Josie, the spoiled dog, is the "tester" of the lunch meat, her favorite job!
She likes to make sure it is the best & tastiest for her beloved  master

Lunch box in hand, sipping the last cup of coffee
Farmer Joe is ready to head out for the day

The harvest crew that I will be talking about are, Farmers Joe & Jay along with Cody
(our hired-man), Ryan (our seasonal help who drives the tractor & load-out wagon) and Kirk, who drives his own semi-truck, along with our fleet to take the grain into the terminals.   Around noon I called to check to see how things were going and found out, the job of feeding America got off to a slow start.  After cutting our first semi-truck load of winter wheat, the moisture testing came in at 13% which is the highest amount that the grain elevator will take.  This is not a good thing to be at the highest level right at the beginning.  Moisture samples indicated the rest of the field was measuring at 14% so we had to shut the operations down for the day. =(  We were experiencing a few mechanical issues, so the combine repairman was called out to our field to fix an issue with Farmer’s Jay combine.  Farmer Joe was fixing some other minor mechanical issues on his machine as well so we will hope to get into the field later on today (Tuesday, August 9^th).  The forecast is for sunny and hot temps, which can mean that the moisture percentage will decrease and be in the acceptable range for the warehouse to take the wheat.  Farmer Joe took his camera and plans on getting pictures and videos that I can upload for you, so stay tuned.   As always, thanks for stopping by and if you have question or comments, please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or post a comment as well.  All my best, Gayle

Waiting for Harvest

Good Morning everyone!  All is quiet on the home front for now....

A view of my lavender and the wheat field that starts just
inches from where our yard stops and the fields start

Farmers understand the art of patience…. as everything we do depends on the weather, and we all know - you can't hurry it up or make it do what you want.  The late cold spring delayed the planting of the crops and the cool summer weather has meant that harvesting the crops is also late by about 2 weeks.  So here it is the 1^st of August and not a combine in the field.  We are hoping to move our combines down to the Tammany farm which is 37 miles away from our main farm here in Genesee.  In normal years we would be about ½ way through harvest down there and gearing up to move up to Genesee to begin harvesting the home place around August 10.  But this year we are hoping to begin on Monday, August 8^th.  But as Farmer Joe says, a late harvest usually means better crops, so he is patiently waiting for the crops to ripen.  So the combines are out of the machine sheds, have had a good checking over and are ready to go once the crops ripen.  Before the combines roll out, I wanted to take a few pictures,  so last night I took out my trusty 1950’s bike with its fat tires that makes navigating the wash-boardy gravel roads easier and rode the ¾ of a mile over to the farm shop.



The crops are starting to ripen, here you can see the parts of the
field are starting to turn golden, but lots of green can be seen



Here is Farmer Jay's combine parked by the shop

A view from underneath the "header", the tines shown help gather
up the wheat as it is cut  by the row of shears on the bottom of the header

Farmer Joe's combine in the forefront and Farmer Jay's combine in the back

One of the Anderson farm semi trucks parked by the farm shop and
waiting to be called into action once harvest can begin

Another view of Farmer Joe's combine by the barn and
shown in front of the garbanzo field. This field will be ready
for harvest mid to late September

So as I peddled home, I stopped to take a picture of our house from the road (below). This is our neighbor's field and again you can see the gold and green colors of the wheat.   I love harvest, but I know once it begins the days fly by in a flurry of activity and before I know it, Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  On our farm, once harvest begins, we will harvest wheat in August, then the garbanzo bean harvest is on its heals and harvested in September.  In October is when the Fall seeding takes place and usually takes the entire month.  Then once all the equipment is put away, it seems like it is almost time for Thanksgiving.... whew!

Our house in the middle of the wheat fields

When I looked the opposite way, here is the entrance to the church that we attend and were married in, where our daughters were baptized,  where oldest daughter Jen was married and where  the youngest daughter  Kaitlyn hopes to be married as well.  As you can see this beautiful church has very special ties to our family. 

My bike parked at the entrance of our beloved church

Genesee Valley Lutheran Church, a very photographed
church with it's picturesque setting

As always, glad you stopped by and if you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment.  Stay tuned as I'll be posting more pictures of harvest once it arrives.  All my best, Gayle

A Day in the Life of a Farmer During Harvest

08.24.2010 This blog has been updated with 2 short video clips

I tagged along with Joe to show you what a day during harvest looks like.  Ours started out with a few sprinkles of rain, so we didn't get into the field until 1:00pm.  The day is usually started around 6:30am-7:00am, so we enjoyed the morning by reading the paper, having coffee and then getting a call from our 4 yoa grand-angel inviting us into breakfast at their house. =) Yummm.

As you can see the clouds were still hanging around and it is cool and windy, about 63 degrees.  Joe is on top of his combine blowing off the wheat chaff and dust.  This practice helps eliminate a possible fire, which the danger of that is always present as their is plenty of dust and wheat chaff that forms on the combine.

Joe on top of his combine blowing off wheat chaff

More wheat chaff and dust being blown off ( you always
want to be upwind when this is occurring)

Cutting wheat with a 40' header

Climbing up into the combine I take my seat next to Joe and watch as the wheat goes through the header which then goes into the bulk tank.  For the passenger, watching the wheat get thrashed in the header is very mesmerizing, sort of like watching a fire in the fireplace. 

The monitor in the cab

 This combine has a monitor that provides all sorts of info, like the one above that gives a picture of the field where Joe's combine had harvested the day before.

A view of what is seen while cutting from the cab

A view from the cab, the wheat chaff makes it dusty

Cutting wheat is dusty and there is chaff flying all over, so above is what it looks like as the header is cutting the wheat. 

Looking into the bulk tank from the cab back window

Loading on the go from the combine into
the bank-out wagon

Above is a picture I snapped as the bank-out wagon pulls up along side the combine and we are dumping the grain into the cart. 

Short video clip of unloading the grain from the combine into the bank-out wagon.  The combine usually needs to unload the bulk tank about every 12 minutes, so  by " unloading on the go" it saves approximately 2 minutes harvest time every 12-15 minutes.

Loading the grain from the bank-out wagon cart
into the semi

The bank-out driver, Erin, then unloads the cart into one of the semi-trucks.

The truck arrives on the scale fully loaded with wheat

 Next I hop into the semi that Cody, our hired man, is driving and go into town with him to dump the grain at the co-op. Above is Cody pulling onto the scales to get weighed fully loaded.

Cody opening the valves so the grain can go into
the pit at Pacific Northwest Co-op

Once the truck is in the correct spot at the warehouse pit, Cody opens the bottom of the grain trailer where the grain drains into the pit. 

The warehouse man collecting a grain sample

Here is a short video clip of unloading at the warehouse.

 

 

The warehouse man takes a sample of the grain for testing. The wheat gets tested for moisture, test weight and grade, checking for sprouted wheat heads, dockage and  a falling numbers test.    

Waiting line to dump the grain at the PNW Farm co-op

The empty semi getting re-weighed

 The empty truck then goes back to the scale to get re-weighed and at that time is when Cody gives the wheat sample to the  person inside the scale house.  Then it's back out to the field again where another semi is loaded and ready to go!  This is what we do to feed America.  As I've said before, farmers are ordinary people who have an extraordinary job to do.