Wide Open Spaces

Here’s another machinery picture for those who like them.  Behind the tractor, once again is the combine.  It’s the view I often see.  The goal here is to stop the 2 combines as little as possible.  So the combine dumps it’s grain into the grain cart pulled by the tractor.  With our new cart the combine can fill it 2-3 times (if you want to know the exact answer you’ll have to ask my kids.)  Then the tractor goes over and dumps the grain into the semi truck.  The semi truck brings it back to our bins, or whatever elevator wants it.

What seems to be the flow is the “younger guys” like Knut rotate driving the tractor until the semi truck is full.  When he leaves with the semi, the other semi is returning and that driver hops out of his truck and into the tractor to keep it moving.

The reason the combine doesn’t directly fill the truck is because the semi is often parked near the road and doesn’t often drive deep into fields, although there are exceptions.  The tractor and cart are designed with huge wheels that distribute their weight better so that a huge machine traipsing through our land has less of an impact.  The combines have tracks on them for pretty much the same reason.

For this soy bean harvest, there are 2 combines per tractor, but if I remember right, with corn harvest the grain comes in too fast for that and there is a 1 to 1 ratio.  The rules change as well with the fact that corn allows them to harvest at night as well.  Fun, fun.

I’m still getting into the groove of harvest.  I’m starting to talk to myself at home.  I mostly say things like, “Well, I guess if I don’t do it, no one else will” in some sort of self-pity.  Knut was home for about an hour mid-day yesterday.  I often don’t know when he will be home as he surprises me.  He was clearly worn out, but was running around taking out the slop and doing his other normal chores.  I told him to sit and rest for his hour.  So he sat and talked with the kids who wanted to climb all over him.  I think we needed him for that more than anything.  I want so badly for him to see our home as a place of rest.

In all honestly, what annoys me most about harvest is all of the Tupperware containers that I wash.  There’s a constant plastic mountain on the side of my sink from all of Knut’s meals.  The water bottles, coffee containers, build this mountain as well.  I wish I had a dishwasher to hide them all in.  The plastics cupboard is Solveig’s favorite stomping ground  these days, so they end up all over the floor as a means of entertainment while I get food made.  So everything needs to be washed before I put food in it, and after I put food in it.

 

David has also been swiping my plastic containers and building himself these elaborate drum sets that he plays with chopsticks that are also swiped.  So I’m finding Tupperware all over my house with static electricity holding black dog hair to it. It then needs to be tracked down, washed, dried, filled with hot food, brought out to Knut, then brought home, washed, dried, and put back in the cupboard.  It’s just a lot of steps for one little job.

I think it’s good, though, that I have a hard time doing the work of 2 people right now.  It means Knut’s   position in this house is a valuable one.  I’d hate for him to feel like I can manage just fine without him.  😉