Farm Time

Time. Time is something there is not enough of sometimes. Especially when it comes to getting the crops off as soon as possible. Why are we in such a hurry? Consider the fact that your entire livelihood, your entire success or failure of the year lies in the crop that you have been waiting for all year to mature. You too would want to get it off the field and away from the unpredictability of Mother Nature as soon as possible. 

One thing I have to adjust to every time I come up is adjusting to Farm Time. What is Farm Time you ask? Well it certainly is not the same as regular time. Not even close. When Chris says, "We are going out in an hour", a lot of things kick into action. An hour is not an hour, it is more like 45 minutes, sometimes 30. I need to get to my camper, eat lunch no matter what time it really is, pack water, snacks and anything else I might need for the day. Phone, headset, charger, take an ibuprofen.....

Lord help us if he says, "We are leaving in 15 minutes", you are basically already late as that means he is walking towards his combine and getting in. 

Once you are in the combine, tractor or truck, usually around 11am, you need to be prepared to be in there the next 9-10 hours. That is a basic shift using Farm Time. Almost three weeks into it, I am used to it, my first week, I had not quite adapted. 

We finished the last of the wheat fields on Thursday evening. This crop may be the saving grace this year as overall yields were pretty good! There are actually a couple of wheat fields left, but those are the hailed out ones and are frankly a lower priority right now as we focus on getting the viable crops off the feilds and into the bins or to the elevator. 

We have since moved on to Canola. The first field we went to is called Millie's as it once belonged to Aunt Millie. A 160-acre piece with about 152 tillable acres. When you are a farmer, it is not about how many acres you own or lease, it is about how many tillable acres you have. Slough and woodlots are not all that valuable to farmers.  

They did something quite interesting on these acres this spring, creating 9 test plots using 9 different varieties of canola. One might think that canola is canola, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  Different varieties have different yields and grow differently. It is quite a tedious process setting up test plots as you have to take the time to flush and switch the varieties every couple of passes. You then have to flag each of the plots to you know which is which at the end of the year. Some we could tell visually, others we could not. 

I will not get into the nitty gritty of the results, if you want that you can push here, but I will say that the top variety (Invigor 330) yielded about 600 more pounds per acre of canola than the poorest performer (Pioneer 612). At the current price of $0.25/pound of canola, that is almost $23,000 over the 152 acres. So many other factors go into these results; rain, some varieties are more drought tolerant than others. Soil type, nutrients.... the results achieved on one field might be totally different on another field a few miles away. Interesting, nonetheless. 

I trucked most of the week once again, with Chris, Farmer Bob and Dylan doing the combining. Bob S carted and Ty assisted with the trucking. Bob S went home on Friday which put me back in the cart for the last three days of my stay. Ty took this video of me dumping canola at sunset one evening. 

I did take one spill this week while I was cleaning the hopper of the truck. I was trying to reach some wheat that was lodged near the top, so I climbed the slope of the hopper to get it. On my way back down, I lost my footing and down I went, right through the trap. It was one of those falls that is so jarring you take the next few seconds to mentally assess what happened and what hurts. My ego hurt most of all, but also my wrist, arm and shoulder. The wrist swelled up for a day or two but seems to be mostly back to normal now, just tender. 

When we were harvesting the wheat around the "Home property" we had a family picnic/supper. Holly, Sydnie and Stephanie set up tables and chairs where we had supper out in the field so to speak. Chris brought out the drone and took a group pictures as well as individual family pictures. Being the only nonfamily member, I opted out as it would just be a picture of lonely old me standing in front of the combine. 

Holly also put together this video put to music which is pretty cool. 

The bonus of harvesting this piece is that you do not have to truck most of it. I just parked the truck over the auger and Bob just dumps into the semi and the wheat just passes straight through into the auger and up into the bin. 

Before I knew it, it was Sunday afternoon and time for me to leave. Sad and happy all at the same time I got in the truck to find this!

I drove two hours that night, and 6 the next morning before pulling into our driveway, It is so good to be home. As I write this, I am on the couch with computer on the arm of the couch and two Frenchies in my lap. Life is good!