Category: Harvest

If you give a mouse a cookie or if you buy a new combine

We bought a new combine at the end of harvest last year. So we are “retiring” our 9550 John Deere Sidehill combine. We went around and around on if we should just sell it, or do you keep it just in case, what are the costs, what are the risks, what are the holes that we would have, etc. So it felt like we went around and around so many times on this decision it felt that this post was appropriate to share. Enjoy….

If you buy a new combine, then you’ll have to sell the old one.

If you sell the old one, you will also have to sell the wheat header that goes with it.

If you sell the wheat header that goes with it you realize they don’t make tiny 12 foot wheat headers anymore.

And since they don’t make tiny 12 foot wheat headers anymore you’ll have to buy a 25 foot wheat header.

If you buy a 25 foot header you realize it won’t fit down the road like your 12 foot wheat header.

Since it won’t fit down the road like your twelve foot wheat header you’ll have to also buy a trailer. 

Since you have to buy the header and the trailer you start to do math and realize it will cost you more than you thought. 

Since it will cost you more than you thought you also think about the size again. 

While thinking about the size again you  realize your windrow coming out of the combine will be twice as big as the 12 footer.

If the windrow is twice as big as a 12 footer, you realize it will be too big for the tiny bale baler for the bales your kids sell each fall. 

If it’s too big of a windrow for your tiny bale baler you realize you would have to spread the straw.

If you have to spread the straw, you then realize that you’d have to buy a set of rakes to then make the small windrow again for the tiny bale baler. 

If you have to buy a set of rakes added to the cost of the header added to the cost of the trailer…. You think that maybe this could be too much of a pain

And maybe, just maybe you should just keep the old combine.

Harvest harvest harvest

We have been rolling along over here in St. Paul. We started harvest early this year, we didn’t get much to any rain since early April so that really sped up the maturing of our crops.

We are on a pretty good stride of the middle of harvest right now. Most days are the same, combine, fill trucks with seed, feed the people, try to stay cool, haul the trucks to the cleaner, rinse and repeat.

The beginning of harvest was a little insane I’ll be honest. We started combining crimson clover at the same time that we started cutting our tall fescue which happened to be at the same time as the good old St. Paul rodeo.

So our days started at 2am with cutting grass, moving on to 11am combining, 7:30pm rodeo volunteering or watching and finishing off that long day around 11pm.

With of course the inevitable crying family member because there weren’t enough games played (Auggie), not enough carnival rides ridden (Millie), too much food eaten (Hoot), ready to be home (Matt) or just plain damn tired (me!). Don’t get me wrong though, we do a good job of having a lot of fun too!

Not sure when we slept that first week but I know I am not the only one to be happy to be in the middle stride of harvest!!

We will finish tall fescue this week and then get the combines all cleaned out for perennial ryegrass. A week or so of that will finish our grass seed harvest for this year. Next up green beans, wheat, radish & filberts!

Wrapping up Grass Seed Harvest

Somedays it feels like we just got started harvesting grass seed this summer. And other days it feels like day 8,537. But irregardless we are wrapping things up on grass harvest of 2024.

It’s gone pretty good. The straw yields are way up. The seed yields are average to up some. It was a strange year with conditions feeling different almost in every field we went into harvest. Lots of setting and resetting of our machines which makes for longer days or at least longer feeling.

We also added two new drivers into the mix as subs when our main two drivers aren’t here. One was our son Hoot, who did an amazing job and took to the job very quickly. Millie also learned to drive the ute, so life looks a lot like getting chauffeured around lately.

Next up is wheat. Which is one of the most fun since it also means the kids get to bale up their small decorative wheat bales for porch decor for this coming fall!! Stay tuned for a chance to get your hands on those cute little things!

Finishing up this crop feels like we finished a marathon that started about a year ago. And one that will start again here shortly as we start to take care of fields for the next years crop, giving some water to start up again, working ground and planting the fields that are rotating, and overall making sure that we set up to reset for another year of farming.

But like I said we still have a little ways to go for this year’s harvest. Wheat, radish and filberts are still left for 2024.