Kimberly: Fall is here and almost gone

We are in the last week of October, and I am not sure how that has happened. We had a slow start to our fall run but once we got going, we covered a lot of ground. That is until we had an eleven day rain delay two weeks ago, and guess what, it’s raining again.  We are all done with the soybeans we had lined up and got four machines blown off, washed and put away before the rain. 

Logan and Danica are in Westhope ND with a crew and have been there since the beginning of September, we might see them move home in November. They finished the soybeans a few days ago and jumped right into corn. The corn is running better than last year and they are not keeping it away as much as they would like.  The moisture for that corn has been around 20-21 percent.   

Mychal and his crew moved out of Montana the last week of August and started cutting in Western North Dakota. The weather was so nice with no rain delays they finished small grains and couldn’t find anymore to cut so they moved home. Roger and his crew had the same thing happen to them. We had 5 machines home for the month of September with no work. The weather was beautiful so it was really hard not being able to be in the field but with the grain prices, equipment prices, most farmers wanted to just cut their own. I don’t blame them at all.  The guys got to work on the machines and get them switched over for beans and found some other projects to do. They also got to spend some time exploring North Dakota and hit up the Big Iron farm show in Fargo.  

Once things dried out and the beans were ready it was time to go. Roger headed to Turtle Lake North Dakota to cut soybeans and then pick some corn. The weather was great and he got the beans and corn done within roughly three weeks and moved the once combine a little farther north to another corn job. The corn is wet so that stopped that combine for now.

Mychal started cutting beans around home, moved down towards Woodworth, Cleveland back to home then a little farther north towards Fessenden.   We have been spread out all over ND for a little bit there and not enough employees so Karlie was working on our beans and then was heading to Fessenden to start beans there. I helped her move and brought a truck up and had my dad bring us back home for more equipment. It’s so nice having family live close that are willing to help. Dad even got to spend a day driving truck for us and I think his whole year was made! Once Karlie and I headed back to the farm Bentley got to run the combine that evening. It worked out perfect because the field was right behind the school, all he had to do was walk out and jump in.  The next day Mychal took Bentley and Kyler with him to the field and Bentley ran the combing and Kyler was in the cart. The down fall about having family close is that the boys called their grandmas every time they were hungry or wanted a drink ( they did have their lunches) and of course grandma won’t say no! Karlie and I grew up a block from each other so her mom is grandma to my kids and my mom is grandma to her kids. 

Cole left Montana a few days before Mychal and headed home to cut wheat. He was there for maybe a week and then packed up and headed Northeast to Langdon North Dakota. He got to cut for quite a few days before the rain set in but got done and moved back towards home. His crew stopped and cut beans just North of home and then jumped on with Mychal to get done.

We had two machines around Jamestown they run with the farmer so we could send two employees down there everyday and not have to worry about one of us going. They finished just in time for more rain.

This summer we had some really bad weather North of us and south of us so some of the bean fields we cut were badly damaged by hail.  Bowdon got hit with bad hail and then two weeks later got hit with hail that sized up to baseball. I looked on our cameras one evening and seen a tornado not far from the shop. That doesn’t happen around here very often but this year we have had more tornados than any other year. 

Bentley and Kyler have been a big help in the field this year and they can’t wait for weekends so they can be in the field again.   

Now we sit and wait to see what this rain does, where it goes and how much we get to decide where we go next.

Bring on corn harvest!