Dryer

Many of you may remember last fall, and the difficulties the farmers had with a wet, wet harvest. The rain wouldn’t stop and the corn wasn’t really mature enough. Harvest was completed, just before Christmas, with maybe some hours to spare. Normally, they hope to be done by Thanksgiving. I remember Knut would set his alarm to wake up every 2 hours to walk out to the grain dryer in the freezing cold to chip the ice off of the fan so it would keep running all night. Harvesting in the winter, it seemed, was no small task.

We’re hoping this year, that won’t happen. The corn seems to be maturing nicer this year, and as long as we don’t get that cold wet weather for weeks on end again, it shouldn’t happen this year. As a bit of insurance, though, and just out of good common sense, the farm got a newer, high efficiency dryer for their corn this year. It has twice the capacity as our old dryer, and it’s supposed to be amazingly efficient, although the guys scratch their head in disbelief as to the efficiency it claims to run on, thinking it’s impossible. I guess this fall they’ll see exactly how much it does in reality instead of on paper.

However, 4 semi-trucks (I think) pulling up a new dryer is sure to gather a crowd, and of course the kids wanted to see the crane in action that came to our house!

The top piece came first, which we thought was all very backwards.

However, soon the others showed up.

Lena was so happy to have so many people here!

We walked back, and found a good spot to observe.

Knut climbed the grain leg to get a good view.

Those of you who drive past our farm may notice some change in your normal view.