Farming, the fun and the not so fun

Our combine has arrived! We are all just a little bit excited, as we have been awaiting this day....like a couple years! We needed it desperately last year, but just didn't find our way to acquire it then. The dogs are excited too, as the truck driver had two canine riders hanging out his window.

The driver is preparing to lower the front of the trailer, while Roger, Tom and Ash stand by.

After the trailer is lowered and the truck has been  driven away, Roger climbs on board and starts the  combine.

and carefully drives forward....

until the front wheels are coming off the trailer

"keep her coming....straight ahead"

And it's off and on terra firma

Before unloading the combine, they started unloading the tires and wheels which were taken off so the combine wouldn't be too wide to transport over the highways.  It traveled here from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Roger met the truck in Great Falls and flagged as it drove through Great Falls and to our farm.  Originally the plan was to flag from Billings on, but the trucker decided to stick to  four lane high way all the way to Great Falls, though it meant more miles travelling on to Butte on I-90 and then up I-15 to Great Falls.

lifting the first wheel off

attaching chains to the second tire....have you noticed the dark clouds that are building?

And off it goes....

The truckers job is done here.  He backs up to load up his trailer and take off.

Brandon and Auntie Jo climb aboard to check it out!

And Eva climbs on board and strikes a pose while  Brandon is happily at the wheel

"There's room for you too, Grandma!"

Who said farming is a piece of cake??

As noted earlier...the clouds were building up and getting darker.  Less than a couple hours after the green combine arrived, the great white combine from the sky arrived to do it's dirty work.  Did I mention that this was Friday the 13th?

We had been getting very anxious about our lack of moisture and the crops were starting to look stressed...and as you would know, when the crops are stressed, so are the farmers and their families.  We had been starting to wonder about the decision to purchase a new combine this year.  Maybe we wouldn't even need it!  Well, it decided to dump from the skies this afternoon, but as luck would have it, it came with a lot of hail and wind. Thus far, that was how it was.....anyone who got much moisture, also got hail.  This seemed to be the start of a cooler and wetter time, and we have appreciated getting a few more rains without the accompanying hail. Right now, the grass is beautiful and green and most of the crops are growing well. We have been grateful for the cooler days up till now, but hotter weather is predicted this week.  After all, July is here....

One of our quarter sections of winter wheat was hit extra hard.  In most of this field, there were hardly any heads that were not knocked over.

It looks pretty ugly...

A total loss....

time to call our Insurance agent....

This wouldn't be our first time to call our crop insurance agent this season.  All of our canola crop should be looking like the picture on the left. Instead, it has the spotty look as seen  on the right. A while after seeding, Roger was checking it every day, wondering why the tender plants were not emerging in a timely manner. Upon further inspection by Roger and a crop consultant, they started finding cut worms.  Except for a few places around the edges, the cut worms were gobbling up every new emerging plant!  It was hard to believe that they could do so much damage over such a wide area!  We started applying pesticide to this and another field of canola that had a little better stand plus all of the new crop of peas.   It was early enough in the season, that it was decided to try replanting the hardest hit canola field.  Roger considered replanting to spring wheat or barley, but our canola representative practically begged us to put it back into canola, as they were short of growers to meet the demand.  Hopefully it won't get too hot and dry and this field will mature into a decent crop of canola to harvest.

One interesting fact we learned from the crop consultant: cut worms turn into moths which eventually fly or get carried by the winds to the Rocky Mountain front and congregate in trees where they become Grizzly bear food! True story!  At least those that don't find there way into my house every time the door opens in the evening and annoy me greatly this time of year!  Oh...and this recent news development just today:  three grizzlies are hungry and are not waiting for the moths to come to them, but are coming to us and have been spotted on the prairie again this spring where they  have killed a calf on a farm/ranch west of us just 30 miles or so.  Getting too close for comfort again!

Till next time,

Linda