By Kim Baldwin, McPherson County farmer and rancher
After a stop-and-go start to fall harvest because of weather and breakdowns, we’ve finally found our groove in November.
The wheat is now in the ground; the cattle have been sent off to winter pasture and the clear and sunny days have allowed us to keep the combines in the fields.
While we are still a month behind schedule when it comes to harvest, it feels good to know the grain is finally coming out of the fields at a steady pace.
Driving by the area elevators, it is clear that everyone has dropped everything to get back into the fields as well. Trucks are lined up to deliver the harvest.
We’re seeing nice yields that are occasionally making our full combines and grain cart stop in the field while we wait on the trucks to return from the elevators only to unload on them again for another trip back to the elevator.
Our truck drivers are constantly on the go right now. So much so that one of our truckers normally brings a book with him to read while he waits for his trailer to get filled with grain before making another trip to the elevator. For now, he’d be better off listening to an audiobook as there’s not much down time.
As I was driving the kids home from school this week, the air was full of harvest dust. Dust from the trucks traveling the dirt roads. Dust being kicked out of the backs of the combines. Dust from the grain being transferred from a grain cart into a trailer.
Within a two-mile stretch of my drive, it seemed like there was at least one combine harvesting on every section in sight.
The harvest dust filled the air. Add that with the earlier sunsets that have been brought on by the time change and the atmosphere illustrated fall productivity at its finest. It was beautiful.
Yes, it looks and feels like fall harvest now. We are thankful for the consecutive days of clear weather and fully operating machines.
It’s my hope that these days continue and we can get as much grain harvested before the next stopping point.
In any case, harvest is happening now. We’ve caught our groove and we’re moving grain.
It’s definitely full steam ahead.
“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.
