Finished Wheat Yesterday. Thankful.

As I sit here in the office looking out at the rain falling down, I'm reminded of the text message I sent to my brother this morning. It simply stated, "Finished wheat yesterday. Thankful." And thankful we are. We struggled to get everything planted this spring due to the moisture that remained from the winter and continued through the spring. But our top-notch crew was ready for the task.

At the beginning of every harvest season, we hold our pre-harvest safety meeting. We also talk about operating procedures for each action during harvest: combining, driving truck, dumping trucks into augers, and on and on. We tried to start combining on August 18th but the wheat was too wet. Then we tried again on August 19th. Too wet. So then we started on August 20th and dumped our first load into the dryer.

I'm not going to lie, it is very fun to combine wheat. I had a mentor once tell me that we weren't "harvesting" we were "capturing". I agree with that statement. With all the care that we provide the crop during the growing season, we are excited to go "capture" the crop when it is ready.

But sometimes during harvest we have breakdowns. And with the newer equipment comes more "technical" fixes than we used to have. 

Thankfully, the fixes weren't that major for us this year. But with the continued high moisture of the wheat, along with potential quality issues of this years crop, we decided to get aggressive in "capturing the crop." We decided to use our dryer in Kloten which we usually use only for corn. Our two dryers in combination with the dedication of our employees helped us finish our wheat before this weeks rainy spell. We are so thankful for good weather, great people, and God's help to be done with harvest.

I took this picture as I was drying wheat in Kloten one night. The star just brings it all home. I'm grateful for my family's involvement in harvest. I think Herlof already realizes that we're still doing what they used to do a hundred years ago....threshing the kernels from the plant. In fact, I know he gets it....