Harvest Time

We’re past the halfway point of harvest now, with the soy beans done and the corn going full speed. This was a photo I snapped before church last Sunday with the combines/tractor/semi all lined up and parked for the day on an almost finished soy bean field across from our house.

The field adjacent to our yard has some corn off of it now. Isn’t it beautiful?

This year seems to be a stark contrast to the last. This warm weather has made everything go so fast, and from my calculations from passing comments Knut has made, fields are getting done 3-4 times as fast as they were last year. The glorious weather in combination with dry fields and a good dry, mature crop has made Knut tell me several times that it has been the most enjoyable harvest that he has experienced thus far. Just yesterday, they harvested their “best” field traditionally, and the corn averaged above 200 bushels an acre for the whole field, which Knut said he’s never seen before.

The corn is amazingly dry, which makes sense because they just bought a big fancy dryer. Traditionally, when you upgrade on something like that, you’ll get a year with very little need to use it. Call it crop insurance. So far, though, I hear no one complaining about that.

Knut’s job is usually running here and there and hauling grain from place to place. The kids got a kick out of watching him work the other day over here:

He was working at the grain bins next to our house, and gave us a call to come out and watch.
If you look closely, you can see too. Look at him. Not even a sweatshirt. It was 83 degrees this day. It just doesn’t feel like normal harvest weather!

He was unclogging something. Kinda like a plumber, but with a harness. And corn, not poop.

Is it too early to hope that the kids will get to trick-or-treat with their Daddy this year? It’s a rare instance, but I almost wonder if this year will be one of those rare times.