By Kim Baldwin, McPherson County farmer and rancher
June is the month that tests my schedule and patience as we await the start of wheat harvest. For years my replies to a variety of invitations and requests have always defaulted to something to the effect of, “That’s June, so if we’re harvesting wheat we won’t be able to.”
June is the one month out of the entire year where I fully exercise being noncommittal.
Our June days are determined by whether the wheat is ready or not. If it’s not ready, a last-minute invitation to have a friend over or spend a few hours at the city pool are possible. But if the wheat is ready, the day has already been intentionally made clear and our efforts are directed to getting the wheat out of the fields as quickly as possible ahead of any summer storms.
We generally have a pretty good idea of when our wheat harvest will take place on our farm based on history and memories posted on social media. Yes, some years we’ve started harvest earlier than normal, but we have established a “normal” harvest window give or take a few days based on the weather.
But there are exceptions, and this year is definitely one of those. We’ve passed the halfway point of the month of June, and with that, we have also passed our “normal” harvest window.
Normally we are in the thick of wheat harvest by this time of the month. I often joke that we will more often than not celebrate Father’s Day with naps because everyone is experiencing a level of tiredness that only occurs during wheat harvest.
But not this year. We are still quite energized at this point in the month mostly because we have had so much rain. The rain has essentially halted all work. From finishing up soybean and sorghum planting to swathing hay and harvesting wheat, we have been unable to get into the fields simply because it’s too wet.
We generally have completed our wheat harvest by the Fourth of July, and I begin thinking about and planning some family activities we’d like to do with the kids before they return to school in August. But this year, that might be pushed back as there’s a pretty good chance that we’ll still be harvesting wheat in early July.
I know the summer heat will soon turn up. I know that the Kansas winds will blow again. And I know that soon we will have dry fields and it will be “go time.”
The combines are ready. The trucks are ready. The workers are ready. And as soon as we can go, we will.
But until then, I’ve decided to extend my practice of being noncommittal into a portion of July as well. Afterall, our wheat harvest is turning out to be anything but normal this year.
“Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.
