Truth???
Cloudy, 28 degrees
Humidity 80%
Dew Point 22 degree
Wind N @ 8 mph
Forecast: Snow
Snow for the New Year.
Snow is good! It seeps slowly into the soil. This is real good for wheat.
Several folks back East have asked if the stories here are real. Are they perhaps embellished? Stolen? Flat out made up? I guess April 1st would be the best day to answer this because ‘any’ answer would work. But, after a little reflection, talking with family and several pastors, i figured we should start the year ‘clearing the air’.
Truth is vital at the farm.
Very valuable equipment (still amazes me that i can drive around in a machine that costs more than
our house) can be severely damaged even ruined if someone won’t speak up….’Hey i forgot to lube the hydraulics this morning.’
Dogs, cows, even people’s lives are at stake working on a farm and truth is the glue that holds everything together. Of course, in Western Kansas truth may come a little easier. Grandma said this is because there just aren’t many places to hide. People can see how you are doing. What your crops look like. How you treat your animals. How you treat your equipment. It’s pretty much all out in the open. This ‘farm honesty’ rubs off. Even on this blog. Truth is important. It is valuable.
As Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) said: ‘Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession….and therefore, are economical in its use.’
Yah, in storytelling and as well as fishing, it can be necessary to increase the size of the fish just to make the story move along a little bit better. But generally, what you read here is the truth….
pretty much.
As Huck Finn said: “There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
4th of July
88 degrees, Sunny
Humidity 28%
Dew Point 58 degree
Wind NE @ 10 mph
Forecast: Clear,
Happy 4th of July.
As promised we started off with porridge. It actually worked out that we used 4 cups of wheat (well cleaned) in a large crockpot. Well actually two crockpots full. There are a fair number of people here.
It was kind of a day off. The cows insisted on milking. Seems there is something in their contract about twice a day milking although they do get ‘time and a half’ for holidays. Clayton Michael was out in swathing some of the ground. Plans to come back tomorrow with the bailer and roll the grass up into big round bales to keep for feed.
A swather at work
Bruce and i went out with a throw-net to get some small fish for bait. We have plans to go to the lake tomorrow. In the process we got the four-wheeler stuck.
Had to call for help. Got pulled out and ran then into Kurt who was riding around the field with his dad. His dad actually owns the land. Admittedly there was a moment….’Did you call to ask if we could come catch bait?’….‘No i thought you did!’ Of course, they have been friends from back in Albert’s (Bruce’s dad) day. Kurt actually knew how to use the throw-net so he gave us some lessons before continuing the ‘drive’ with his dad.
Kurt called a little while later and offered to go seining with us. A great story with photos and videos by Hilary, coming soon.
After afternoon milking we gather at Bruce & Joyce’s. Awesome food. A few fireworks (poppers & sparklers, nothing in the air….too dry) and then spent some time at the pool in the backyard.
A few hands of pinochle and bed.
All and all a great 4th of July in the country.
Grain-Cart Camera
92 degrees, Sunny
Humidity 32%
Dew Point 58 degree
Wind N @ 16 mph
Forecast: Sunny
First load of wheat for the day is now on the grain-cart.
We’re on top of a rise and there is a good breeze.
Turn off the tractor.
Kick open the ‘doors’.
(OK just one door and the back window). Nice cross ventilation.
Warm but not yet hot. The drone of the combine on the other side of the pasture competes with a fly passing through.
A relaxing way to start the day.
A real relaxing way to start reading about our new grain-cart camera and monitor.
Grain-cart rule #1: Don’t spill any wheat.
There are several obvious times where wheat can be spilled. One is when we are off loading wheat from the combine into the grain-cart while both vehicles are moving.
Pretty obvious wheat spillage potential.
Another is off loading the wheat from the grain cart into the semi. Maybe a little less obvious unless you sit in the tractor seat: the semis are taller than the tractor. It is hard to see where the wheat is actually falling. So….
A few years ago we started talking about a camera on the grain-cart auger. A ‘wheat’s eye view’ of the semi. Well it came in the mail the day after harvest began.
Took several days to get the time to set it up. Had to mount it on the grain cart and not the auger. Too much vibration on the auger itself. But this configuration is working really well. More 21st century technology to augment the age-old art of cutting wheat.
The camera monitor is mounted inside the tractor and will accommodate three cameras so Clayton is talking of putting another one on the back of the grain cart. Won’t help much with moving wheat but will help while riding down the road. Dirt road courtesy dictates that whenever riding along in farm equipment it is polite to pull to one side and let the people behind (in pickups and cars) pass.
The grain-cart is wide enough that it takes up a fair amount of dirt road. The classic way to check if anyone is behind is to pull to one side of the road then make a sharp turn toward the opposite side of the road. As the tractor heads to the other side of the road, there is very brief moment (maybe two seconds) when the tractor mirror (on the same side of the tractor as the turn) will have a fairly clear view of the road behind grain-cart. This is the way folks have been ‘checking behind’ implements for years.
Probably did it with horse teams.
A camera mounted on the back of the grain cart, like many modern SUVs, RVs, etc, would make life a lot easier, safer and more friendly for anyone following.
Maybe next year.
Harvest??
95 degrees
Humidity 33%
Dew Point 62 degree
Wind S @ 23 mph
Forecast: Sun, hot
Well several folks back East have been asking when harvest was going to start. Of course, several folks back West have been asking the same question.
Last year we were a week done by now and well into fishing. But this year’s rain and cool Spring have pushed things back a bit. Way back. But it looks like we will get started this week, maybe by Thursday or Friday. 27th or 28th. There was talk a few weeks ago that harvest might not begin until July 1st. Almost unheard of.
The Denver clan will get to the farm on Tuesday of this week. So will the Greenville folks.
The new combine and header are almost ready to go. The combine is a John Deere STS (see 12.21.12 post)…..a Moose. The header is a new style for us and the combination is supposed to run the grain-cart driver into the dirt. No feet propped-up, no naps or no writing blogs. Serious wheat haulin’.
It suddenly occurs to me that some of the nieces & nephews are old enough to be learning the ‘trade’. The noble profession of grain-cart drive should be passed along. Kept in the family, of course. But the ‘old’ driver certainly can’t keep ‘hogging’ all the fun.
Yep….may be time to start looking for an apprentice.
Going to be using Vine this Summer. Vine is a six-second video format by Twitter. So please be checking out the link on the left. (The sideways format is because Vine does not allow ‘landscape’ videos….still learning).
Note: (September 2022) Vine no longer exists. It was bought by Twitter for 30 million dollars in 2012. Twitter was almost bought by Elon Musk in 2022 for 44 billion dollars. Now that Musk has pulled out of the deal Trego Center Dairy can resubmit our bid to buy Twitter….
We’ll let you know.
The Moose
Sunny, 90 degrees
Humidity 44%
Dew Point 65 degree
Wind E @ 20 mph
Forecast: Scattered thunderstorms late tonight
The Moose is on the farm.
Came this afternoon.
A truly awesome piece of machinery. Wouldn’t even fit in the mailbox.
The header should arrive tomorrow.
harvest ’13 begins
Partly cloudy, 85 degrees
Humidity 48%
Dew Point 58 degree
Wind S @ 16 mph
Forecast: Scattered showers this evening
Harvest 2013 has begun! The Moose is in the field.
The East Coast Clan is now at the farm, after a great stop in Lawrence, Kansas to visit the grandkids (well the ‘kids’ too, of course). Had a great lunch at the Indian restaurant on 9th street. We had been there before and spent about 622 miles talking about the food.
Got to the farm about 6:45 pm.
Milking was still going on.
Hilary went straight to the barn.
Carolyn & i unloaded. Joyce came over to say hello….seems just like we had just seen each other. Probably because we had. Joyce, Bruce, Pam and Austin drove out to G-Ville for Hilary’s graduation
About 7:30 Bruce from BTI (the implement company where we get most of our stuff) was out to work with Bruce (from the farm) on the settings of the new header.
At first glance the header looks like something from long ago. About 5-seconds into cutting it is quite obviously 21st Century technology.
One really cool feature is that there is a conveyor-belt that brings the cut wheat to the center of the header where it is fed into the combine. Everything i’ve ever seen (OK admittedly this is not a ‘vast’ amount of experience, but my observations are confirmed by everyone i know who cuts wheat) uses an auger to bring the wheat to the center of the header. The auger (Archimedes screw from physics 101) is the standard way to move grain around.
The conveyor-belt leads to a lot less ‘cracked’ (broken) wheat.
Way cool.
Cut until about 9 pm.
Tomorrow will cut by the house so the grain-cart drive should be able to keep up….LOL.
Ttradition!
Sunny
95 degrees
Humidity 24%
Dew Point 51 degree
Wind NW @ 15 mph
Forecast: Sunny, Hot
Hilary is in the combine with Bruce.
Loren, a friend from town is driving the semis today. Two loads already in to the elevator.
There is a ritual to taking wheat to town. For the folks in the field the most important part of this is finding out the yield….’how are we doing’!
A bunch of stuff goes into this computation.
The moisture of the wheat. Too wet and we get docked….time to stop. Actually, moisture content is often the determining factor deciding when it is time to quit cutting. We’ve got the lights and skill to cut all night, but too much moisture makes the cutting hard and can cause to be ‘docked’ at the elevator resulting in a lower price.
The average weight of the wheat.
The amount of wheat in the truck.
The ‘dockage’ (the amount of chaff and moisture in the load). When it is all said and done the folks in the field want to know two things.
Moisture.
Bushels per acre.
Tradition mandates that when the semi driver is within radio distance of the field (we use handheld ‘walkie-talkies’ in the field) the ‘vital’ information is sent to everyone. This information is eagerly awaited.
Because we are working on dirt roads it is often easy to see the wake of dirt following the semi long before it arrives. So as soon as the semi-driver sees the dust kicked up by the combine it’s time to call.
The Moose has changed all of this.
It automatically measures the moisture and computes the bushels per acre. It actually plots the yield on the GPS readout.
21st Century technology greatly increases the yield.
Makes the job easier.
Allows a totally computer based integrated picture of the field….but….
I swear i can hear Tevye (from Fiddler on the Roof) singing and dancing in the haze at the edge of the field. ‘And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word… Tradition.
Tradition!
Tradition!’
But there is no sense kicking….the Moose is moving us away from Anatevka directly into 21st Century harvesting.
Ready Teddy to rock n Roll
Sunny
102 Degrees
Humidity 31%
Dew Point 58 degree
Wind NE @ 8 mph
Forecast: Sunny, Hot
Clayton Andrew got the farm late Tuesday night.
I thought we were in for an ‘all-nighter’. As long as the moisture isn’t too high, Clayton Andrew will keep cutting until the cows come home, which, by the way, is about 4:30 am. But Bruce called it a day because the ‘old guys’ were having problem with the onboard computer and GPS in the Moose. Go figure.
The Denver Kearby Clan arrived as the cows were coming home. They left Denver about midnight (Pastor Don had a meeting until about 10 pm) so got to the farm as the cows were heading into the milking parlor.
We now have a crew in place to do some serious cutting.
‘I’m ready, ready, teddy to rock and roll’ (Rip It Up/Ready Teddy from John Lenon’s Rock n Roll album, 1973)
Timing
95, Sunny
Humidity 24%
Dew Point 59 degree
Wind WSW @ 10 mph
Forecast: Sunny, Hot
A great day to cut wheat.
This morning Bruce & Clayton Andrew started moving equipment from up North of the farm to three miles West of the farm. Before Bruce moved the combine he cleaned up about 10 acres from last night. The GPS on the Moose plots in different colors how many bushels we have cut. So it is easy to see if there are any gaps.Bruce then drove the combine over to the field where we will be today and tomorrow. It was early enough that Bruce didn’t see anyone else on the road.
Almost six miles of dirt road.
When driving a combine with the header on it is nice not to have any traffic. Even on dirt roads….in fact our dirt roads right now are mostly populated with combines, and grain carts and semis.
Clayton dropped me off so I could drive the grain-cart over. He drove a semi over. He got to the new field before me.
The semi goes a lot faster.
Clayton Andrew is a lot younger.
I got lost.
Not too bad but about two miles out of the way. On the up side i recognized almost immediately that i was lost. Called for directions. And actually got the tractor and grain-cart turned around at a field intersection, including backing it all up. Backing up with the grain-cart, or semi, or boat, or trailer, or almost any towed thing is not something that comes easily for me. My sister can back a horse trailer up 10 miles of dirt road outside Golden Colorado.
I didn’t get those genes.
About three years ago i almost killed Bruce while he was teaching me to drive the semi. About a mile from the farm he had me turn at an intersection and then back up through the intersection. Bruce’s injuries came when he was laughing so hard that he almost hit his head on the dash (old Kenworth steel) as he slipped out of the seat onto the floor.
Today i succeeded.
Backing up the grain-cart,
Not killing Bruce.
And the guys working in the field near by didn’t even stop to watch.
One of our traditions is that the equipment must be fueled, greased and the windows cleaned at the beginning of the day.
I got to the new field just as Clayton was finishing with the combine.
Timing.
In music and equipment maintenance, timing is everything.
Two Finger Drop Test
Sunny, 90 degrees
Humidity 17%
Dew Point 53 degrees
Wind WSW @ 17 mph
Forecast: Sunny, Hot
A great day for cutting wheat!
Right people.
Right equipment.
Right weather.
All and all a righteous day for cutting.
Bruce started cutting.
Bruce stopped cutting.
The conveyor belt (remember the conveyor belt) was not conveying. The sickle-bar was cutting. The reel was turning but the wheat in the header was not moving.
Time to break out the manuals. Being a new header with new technology (conveyor-belt vs auger) there just is not much ‘past-harvest-breakdown-repairs-memory’ to call on. Between Bruce & Clayton Andrew they have just about seen it all when it comes to farm equipment. And a city boy with great observational skills (‘Is the round thing supposed to push against the twisty thing?’) we can diagnose almost any problem. In the name of fair disclosure i should point out that ‘the city’ boy is usually best utilized by ‘Bob hold this.’ or ‘Bob get the pickup and go to Ness City and pick up the part the dealer has.’ But today even city boy knowledge (‘don’t make eye contact’) isn’t helping.
Called the dealer.
In Ness City.
30 miles away.
In the meantime everything that can be greased is greased. Windows (even on the field truck) are cleaned. When the ‘professional mechanic’ arrived the equipment was looking good. Field mechanics have awesome trucks. In the days of my youth when i was stacking bricks and blocks i always thought the electricians had the coolest trucks. They were always new and shiny and stocked with tons of cools stuff. John Deere field mechanics have them beat six ways to Sunday. John Deere field mechanics’ trucks are loaded with all the equipment & tools necessary to take a combine (or pretty much anything else) apart and put it back together again.
So, the pro checked the lines and connections. This header pretty much runs on hydraulics. Of course, all farm equipment pretty much runs on hydraulics. The pro checked the manuals again and noted that the symptoms indicated that the conveyor-belt was jammed.
But it’s not.
It just thinks it is.
So ‘jiggle’ the header up and down….runs like a charm.
Seems the trip over to the new field had jiggled some thing that made the computer think the header was jammed
Clayton Andrew and i were sitting in the field pick-up. He started laughing. Looked over and said ‘just like your two finger drop test.’
I first heard about the two finger drop test from a computer technologist in Delhi, India. My desktop computer was freezing up. I called ‘support’. Ended up talking with Dhaval (‘call me Dave’). After going through the usual reboots and talking about the weather in Delhi, India and Chinle, Arizona, Dave asked in passing, ‘Did you already try the two finger drop test?’ No i hadn’t. I had never heard of the two finger drop test. So, Dave said lift up the front edge of my computer (a tower) about two finger widths and then drop it.
What the heck.
It’s two in the morning and the computer is no longer a computer. So i raised the front edge about two fingers worth and let go.
A slight bang. The computer worked perfectly.
Since then i’ve asked a number of technologists who are friends and they have all heard of some version of the two finger drop test. Although the computer is mostly electronics there are some moving parts. They can get jammed. Whatever the physics is, it often works.
This afternoon the two finger drop test worked on the new header.
Sunset in the Wheat Field
Sunny, 85 degrees
Humidity 26%
Dew Point 56 degree
Wind NE @ 6 mph
Forecast: Cooler, partially cloudy
5:30pm and we’ve finished with this field.
6:45 and Clayton Andrew and i have moved everything to the new field, gone home and unloaded a semi. Some of the wheat is stored at home. Some is stored at one of the elevators in town.
Bruce, Hilary and Eliana have finished milking. And we all got to sit down and take a break.
Dinner at home.
Dinner in the wheat field is fun and can be really impressive. But dinner at home is relaxing.
After dinner we head back to start on the new field. Bruce spent an hour or so giving rides. It is a tradition that everyone rides along in the combine at least once during harvest. Now that the Moose is on the loose….well there is a waiting line. The sunset makes the wait more than worth it.
When Carolyn, Hilary and i were living in Chinle, Arizona we had the rare opportunity to meet some awesome Dine’ (Navajo) artists. Sunsets always come up. They are a staple of local artists. Northwestern Arizona is filled with miles an
When the wind carries the dust high enough there is magic.
Pancake in the Penguin
67 degrees, Partially cloudy
Humidity 65%
Dew Point 58 degree
Wind NNW @ 5 mph
Forecast: Clearing, cooler
‘There is a pancake in the penguin for you.’
This is just not the sort of thing i hear often.
Especially at 7:30 in the morning. In fact this is the first time i’ve ever heard it.
But it’s not. At any time of the day.
But Pam, who is flipping pancakes at the stove, says it without a hint of irony and the rest of the people sitting around the kitchen table take no notice of her comment.
Now we do hear some unusual things at the Farm. There are people in the family who have lived and traveled all over the world. Seen all kinds of things. So somewhere ‘a pancake in the penguin’ is a normal occurrence.
Actually, that somewhere is in Grandma’s house.
The penguin is an aluminum ice bucket circa 1960s with penguins marching around the outside. Over the years it has held many things.
Salads, warm and cold.
Biscuits, muffins and rolls.
Eggs, all types.
Potatoes, all types.
Ice, crushed and cubed and
pancakes.
Ice and rolls i had seen. But for a few moments, at breakfast, hearing that there is a pancake in the penguin fill me with images and hopes for a great day cutting wheat.
Grain-Cart Rules
88 degrees, Sunny
Humidity 44%
Dew Point 52 degree
Wind NNE @ 12 mph
Forecast: Scattered clouds/rain
Rheta is here. She got in this afternoon with her kids. They are riding in the combine with Grandpa Bruce.
No stress, but she was (is) my grain-cart driving instructor. She (and Clayton Andrew) grew up on the farm. She was driving tractors long before she was driving cars.
About five years ago when i was a grain-cart apprentice it was Rheta who taught me the ropes. I’m about 30 years older than her but when i’m driving the grain-cart i’m way younger.
Now with her riding ‘shotgun’ in the Moose, i’m eager to show off.
We’re off-loading the wheat from the combine into the grain-cart while on the go. Both running at four miles an hour.
OK i’m a bit sloppy.
But i didn’t hit the header and no wheat was spilled. Sooooo….i get a passing grade with the suggestion to review the grain-cart rules.
Grain-cart driving rules.
1) Don’t spill any wheat. Wheat equals money. It is how we pay the bills.
2) Don’t hit the combine (or any other equipment). It takes time to fix equipment. If the equipment is not running we are not cutting wheat and if the weather changes it could ruin whatever crops are still in the field. Down time from carelessness is just not cool.
3) Cross the terraces at an angle (terraces are the ridges that run across a field that help prevent erosion). Taking the grain-cart across the terraces at 90 degrees puts undue stress on the swing bar (connects the tractor to the grain cart) and the PTO (power take off, the linkage from the tractor to run the auger on the grain cart). Damaging the parts that connect the grain cart to the tractor leads to down time (see #2).
4) Don’t spill any wheat.
5) Grease the appropriate parts on the grain cart every 2 to 3 days (see #2).
6) Drive slowly in the field, especially with wheat in the grain cart (see #1 & #2).
7) Don’t drive on the terraces (except to cross them) because it tears them down leading to erosion.
8) Don’t spill any wheat.
As the day progress i do better. All in all driving OK in front of my teacher. No gold stars, but hey, i didn’t spill any wheat.
Back East Haiku
84 degrees, Partially cloudy
Humidity 27%
Dew Point 53 degrees
Wind NE @ 14 mph
Forecast: Sunny, mild
Walking back home where
windmill music serenades
another sunset
2013 Wheat Harvest Finished
81 degrees, partly cloudy
Humidity 24%
Dew Point 41 degree
Wind E @ 4 mph
Forecast: Sunny
July 2nd 7:09 pm. Bruce and Hilary put the last of the wheat is on the semi.
Wheat harvest 2013 is done.
Done before the 4th.
Now it is time to clean up the equipment. Do a little maintenance. Get ready for Fall harvest (soybeans, corn, etc).
But first its time to party. Cedar Bluff lake for inner-tubing and fishing. Hays for dinner. Golden Corral. One of Grandma’s favorites and a tradition for the day after harvest.
4th of July we’ll start with porridge….two cups of wheat cleaned in water (get rid of the dirt and chaff) put in the crock-pot, covered in water, tuned on low over night.
A great breakfast.
A little more time at the lake then home for hotdogs, potato salad and Trego Center Dairy ice-cream.
We have a double handful of stories, photos and videos about harvest waiting to be posted. Now that we no longer live in the field we’ll get them up.
Tubing
101 Degrees
Partly Cloudy
Humidity 22%
Dew Point 55 degree
Wind W @ 15 mph
Forecast: Possible thunderstorms
Last year we started a new post-harvest tradition.
Tubing.
The fishing boat is more than big enough to pull a Cabelas’ two person tube. Pull it fast enough to provide an awesome ride. Even for hardcore body-surfing East Coasters.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
Fishing
75 degrees, Partly cloudy
Humidity 65%
Dew Point 50 degrees
Wind SE @ 10 mph
Forecast: Partly cloudy
Generally, we don’t go fishing on the weekend.
Saturday is filled with catching up on things from the week. And Sunday, well we just don’t fish on Sunday.
OK….honestly….
there are just too many weekend lake people.
But Monday…..well Monday is a great time to go fishing. Clayton Michael had spent the night. He was doing field work on Sunday afternoon and evening.
Monday, not much wind. Good temperature.
Time to go fishing.
As soon as milking is done we were in the truck, boat behind on the way to the lake.
The rule in Kansas is that you can have two fishing poles in the boat per person.
We always take two poles.
Clayton Michael actually fishes with both poles. Sometimes one trolling (lure trailing behind the boat) and casting with the other. Sometimes trolling with both. It takes a fair amount of effort to keep two poles going at the same time.
He can do it.
The only thing he’d, maybe, rather do than fishing is hunting.
If he can do both at the same time….nirvana.
Thursday Bruce and I were out with Carroll. He has the farm a mile and a half East and half a mile North of Bruce’s. He lives right in the middle of the section. Which he reports is great. Less traffic so less noise. Nobody ‘just’ driving by at speeds above prudent. Less light from neighboring farms. Generally great. The only drawback Carroll says is that the mailbox is half a mile away.
Carroll is a fishing guru.
He has skill. Knowledge. Years of experience. And now that he is ‘pretty-much’ retired from farming, lots of time to ‘practice’ fishing.
A few weeks ago he was on the lake and found himself in the middle of a bunch of white bass feeding on a school of shad. Shard are small fish that big fish like to eat. These feeding frenzies are visible from a good way off. The bass chase the shad to the surface and suddenly an area fills with jumping fish. These feeding frenzies will often last a few minutes. Not much more.
A good fishing guide will see the disturbance, get the boat over there just in front of where the fish are going and people with the poles will get dinner.
Carroll’s, now legendary encounter, lasted for about 30 minutes. ‘So many fish hitting the surface it sounded like rain’. This ‘fish-story’ has the advantage that there were other people in the boat. And two hours spent cleaning fish.
We were on the lake just after morning milking. Carroll, living up to his reputation, caught the first fish, a white bass. Caught it within ten minutes of getting on the lake.
Things kind of fell off after that.
We pretty well cruised all over the lake. Fishing here then there. Catching, nowhere. There were several others we knew on the lake. Because everyone now has cell phones we are able to get fishing reports from all over the lake. After four hours we were all even with two fish each. A good time to head home.
The final analysis showed that we held our own. Dinner that night was potato fries and fish.
Call it a good day.
Water
78 degrees, Partially cloudy
Humidity 52%
Dew Point 53 degree
Wind NW @ 10 mph
Forecast: Clearing, cooler
A little rain would be nice. Not much chance. But we can always hope.
We take water with us. Everywhere. There are small red ‘igloo’ coolers of water in the semis, pick-ups, tractors, combine, even in the back of the four-wheeler.
I’ve often suggesteed that we ought to get a small ‘water buffalo’ (water tank on wheels) to bring out into the field. Of course I often mention a jacuzzi on wheels. To take to the field. Tow it along with the water buffalo & a generator. Just to have available on those really long days.
Sometimes i worry that my suggestions are lost in the chaff of dehydrated musings, but if we don’t dream….
A few days ago moving equipment from field to field i saw a well. Right at the edge of the field. Nothing around it but wheat. And that wheat has been carefully cut. Very carefully.
Bruce says there used to be a farmstead there.
The land changed hands. Changed hands again.
The outbuildings were scrapped. The house was scrapped. The road to the house was plowed. Salvage what can be salvaged, bury the rest.
Throughout the years everyone involved makes sure to save the water.
Water is, after all, water.
Bike Run
89 degrees, Sunny, few clouds
Dew point: 41 degrees
Humidity: 20%
Wind: S @ 10 mph
Forecast: Sunny
Not bad. 1974 BMW R90/6.
A sweat ride.
900 ccs of the best road bike every made.
The bike has been in the family for years. I first got it in Colorado in 1988. Way low mileage. Maybe 35,000. It belonged to a friend of a friend of Deborah (my sister). The guy lived up Golden Gate Canyon (West of Golden at about 7,800 foot level) about two miles from my sister’s ranch.
He got it from a friend. Did a few road trips in his youth.
Got married.
Got kids.
Bike got a corner of the garage.
Eventually came to me.
So, i got some leathers. A James Dean jacket from Candy (call sign from his Nam door gunner days), handmade chaps from Uncle Leroy, bike boots from the saddle shop in town then hit the road.
Did a few short road trips.
Got married.
Got kids.
Bike got a corner of the garage.
Bike came to the Farm.
Bruce got it fixed up. Did a few West Kansas road trips.
Got knee surgery.
Got wisdom.
Bike got a corner of Grandma’s garage.
We talked about getting it fixed up, maybe adding a sidecar. But time rolls on. And nobody’s ‘leathers’ fit quite right anymore.
For several years Bruce has said that we need to pass the bike on the Eli (my son). Eli is the kind of dude that loves to fix things. Houses, cars (especially Porches’), electronics; if it can be ‘fixed’ Eli can do it.
We loaded up the bike and all its stuff in the back of the Ford 150 and right after morning milking hit the road. Clayton Michael is at the farm all day so, right after fishing and field work he will do the afternoon milking.
Bruce and i get to Lawrence about 11:30. Went to Eli’s and unloaded the bike into his garage. The most current Porsche restoration temporarily gives up its spot.
Went to lunch with Eli Chris, Muriel & Malcolm at the best bar-b-que rib joint in Lawrence.
Then head West. Back to the farm.
We stop in Topeka to see Clayton Andrew and turn in the data from wheat harvest. The new combine has an onboard computer that records all the data from the field. This is fed into a program, Clayton Andrew has, which will be added to the rest of the data about the field (crop type, planting, any field work, etc) and when it is all said and done, we’ll have a detailed computer analyses of the expenditure/income for the field.
Farming is rushing into the 21st Century.
After talking with Clayton we drove to Salina for dinner with John & Jan. John works at the Land Institute. A very visionary group that is currently trying to create a commercially viable perennial wheat (plant it once and it comes back again) with the same yield as regular wheat. Some of what John is involved in is mapping wheat, and wheat grass genetics. Real TV/CSI stuff. However, it seems to take a lot longer than the 30 minutes on TV.
Go figure.
We hit the road again about 8 pm. Drive through some rain.
By the time we get home the rain has already passed over the Farm. Not as much as needed, but, rain is rain and the dirt is settled on the roads.
Bed felt good. And it is cool enough to leave the windows open for the night. And there is no dirt in the air.
Can’t be beat.
Bike Run Addendum
72 degrees, Sunny, few clouds
Dew point: 38 degrees
Humidity: 27%
Wind: S @ 7 mph
Forecast: Sunny
Eli has brought the R90/6 back to life and it looks awesome.
When we took the bike to him it was the first motorcycle he ever owned. And one of the first he has ridden. He now has two more BMW bikes and is becoming well known as a BMW mechanic.
Now i’ve got the itch to get some new leathers and head for the coast.
Good on ya’ Eli.
Good on ya’.
tregocenterdairy 