We have hit the homestretch of our summer harvest here! We have just about 4 more days and (fingers crossed) we’ll be putting away the combines for the season. That doesn’t mean that we’re done with summer work though, quite the opposite.
Because of the large diversity of crops you can grow here, our rotations are always changing. And most of the rotations are planted in the fall. Which means the moment that you get the crop from last year off the ground, it’s time to turn around, flail (mow) the field of last year’s crop, work the ground, get soil tests, and get the dirt ready to be planted for the next year. Right now we have 4 fields coming out of perennial ryegrass, 1 field coming out of peas, 3 fields that are done with crimson clover, and 2 fields that are going to be finished up soon from a wheat crop. This equates to about half our farm that will change over this fall to new crops! That’s no small amount of diesel, time and effort!
Having my little niece come out to say hi makes a day go by much faster!
We had a visitor out the the farm awhile back, as a person who has traveled the world visiting farms and ranches, he was amazed that we had teenagers driving our harvesting equipment. “It has been my experience that usually it’s the boss or the most senior worker who runs the harvesters, it’s crazy to see young kids up there!” But in this area, we don’t just have one crop to get off the ground and into the bin. We have that, but then we also have tractor work going on, mouse bait to spread (because of the geese in our area we only have a small window to get this on), plus all the stuff that I break has to be fixed, the list just goes on and on. There’s not a lot of room for the boss to jump on a combine for three weeks.
So as well all stumble into work today, thinking about just a few more 15 hour days ahead of us, it does feel good to know that most of harvest is behind us and it’s time to move forward to next year’s crop, taking care of the land, and getting it all planted, so it can produce another round of good crops in 2014!
NuttyGrass 
I love reading about your days! Keep up the good work!
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Thanks Judy! 🙂
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