Soy Beans Are Done!

I am thrilled to let you know that 11:30 last night, Knut came home. He had been working, stopping home only to eat about 2 times a day for 38 hours straight. (He did eat more than 2 times a day of course, but he only came home that often!) I think he was still buzzed a bit from his coffee, because if I came home after a 38 hour shift, I’d be sleeping on the first soft piece of furniture that my path crossed. Knut, however, took a shower, talked with me as I was cleaning up the kitchen, brought wood pellets in for the furnace downstairs, and then headed to bed.

Now that the soy beans are done, focus can be turned to the corn–covering the other half of our land. From what I’ve gathered, corn harvest is when they really push hard because they can. Morning dew, light rains, and even a bit of snow does not stop them. Wet corn does not cause the same problems that wet soy beans do. So why didn’t they just do the corn first this year during all the rain? Because we had such a cool summer that the corn simply wasn’t mature enough to harvest. With the extra late harvest, it’s now ready.

Normally they come home at night during soy bean harvest because there’s nothing else to be done. (Them working through the night on the soybeans this week was the first of my short memory that I remember that happening. However there was a decent wind going on at the time, enabling them to continue on.)

During corn harvest, though, the night does not stop them. However, they can’t work round the clock for days on end, so what they have done in the past is take 4 hour “sleep shifts” every day–Monday through Saturday. That way the harvesting doesn’t stop at night…but I’m sure it does slow down a bit as everyone isn’t on the field at the same time.I’m so grateful that they are one of the few farms left who don’t work on Sundays. It truly becomes a day of rest this time of year.

And speaking of Sundays, this Sunday will be a special day in our house, because my little baby is turning 1. It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed by! It still feels like we just left the NICU. The next coming weeks I’m bringing Elias back up to the city he was helicoptered to after he was born, so that the same specialists that saw him there can do a “check up”of sorts. He still has his 1 year check up with our doctor here, too, as the specialists will be looking for more specific things. And of course, when we’re up there I’m going to try to get Elias’ one year portraits done. Life hasn’t slowed down yet!