Holdrege, Nebraska – It is now May 18th and I am at home yet because of two reasons. The first is that my nephew Sunder graduated from Holdrege High School yesterday! Congratulations Sunder! I am very proud of you! It’s been a fun three days full of graduation celebrations. Sunder has an excellent work ethic and was a good student and involved in school activities and church, too. I’ve enjoyed watching him grow up. He’s an excellent combine operator and takes great pride in his Dodge pickup (just look at his TikTok). The second reason is the drought. Oh, that hurts! I am ready to be on harvest, but a lot of wheat got zeroed out early and there’s not much to cut. We’ve only got four combines at our first stop this year in southwest Oklahoma. The drought has severely affected that area, and I’m disappointed I don’t get to go. Jared got started cutting wheat May 16th and said the wheat has been yielding 20 to 30 bushels per acre and the test weight has been around 60 pounds per bushel. He’s been cutting for three days but now the 10-day forecast looks like cooler temperatures and chances of rain. Welcome to wheat harvest! JC called me and just arrived down south this evening and said there are not many crews out on the road at all. It’s also super dry from here to there. Wheat will be ready from Oklahoma to southern Kansas in the next day or two. I’ll be leaving to go south shortly, too.
This spring has been quite busy. I’ve been doing CDL testing almost daily. I start those at 7 am then work all day at the shop then sometimes have more CDL testing around 6 pm. We put on a lot of new combine parts, changed belts and concaves, took duals off and put singles on, fixed truck and trailer tires, and on and on and on. Changing a John Deere combine rotor cover is the worst. I really wish John Deere would make the middle rotor cover thicker on the left side. Every combine gets a hole in the left side of the rotor cover around 1,000-1,200 hours. It’s a job to change one and I never want to do that again.
I’m certainly ready to be back in the trucks and combines and looking forward to harvest as usual! I just wish the conditions and yields were better, but Mother Nature calls the shots. In January I attended the U.S. Custom Harvesters convention in Des Moines, Iowa but other than that I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve just been working away. I wish the wheat crop looked better for everyone this year. It’s going to be challenging and tough. I wish everyone safe travels and best of luck this harvest season. If interested in having wheat cut, you may call Schemper Harvesting at (308) 991-7211. Thank you!
Janel Schemper can be reached at [email protected].
