Busted ...

The school nurse called and asked about DS1. "Just be sure we have not lost him, somehow."

"Uh ..." I can't lie to save my life. (Why would I want to?) "He's driving tractor for his dad."

"Oh."

That ended the call.

So DS1 took wagon loads of corn to the feed mill to put in grain bank for us, and to the elevator to sell for cash. At one of the two he said another farmer had a load so wet that juice was coming out the bottom of the gravity wagon. It tested 40 percent moisture. Ideal is about 15 percent.

The next day we wrote a note to his teacher (who grew up on a farm) DH was adamant that this was a one-time only deal. (Until spring, I am thinking) I was afraid DS1 would have to miss recess, stay in and write sentences or something like that.

When he got home we asked what happened. "Teacher said he would have done the same thing," DS1 said with a laugh.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

The neighbors are combining corn so DH, Grandpa and DS1 are running wagons to the feed mill and to the grain elevator where we sell our cash grain. DS1 is busted. The school nurse called and asked where he was.

Not a cloud in the sky. I think everyone in the Midwest is probably running corn today.

Mowing hay ...

... DH and Grandpa mowed hay all day yesterday. DH said this is the latest he has ever mowed. If we can get it in, in good shape, our horse-owning customers would probably like it. Very green and fine textured.

They are also going to try and plant wheat on the high side of the field where we just got beans off -- where it was so wet everything got stuck at least once.

So ... we have hay and wheat planting going on, and harvesting corn is up next.

It's the most wonderful time of the year :-)

Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar ...

Apologies to whoever wrote "Wabash Cannonball." The neighbors are here combining soybeans for us. Yasha and I turned off the lights in the house to watch their big International roll through the front field across the lane from us. Matfieh thought it was cool -- except that they drive an IH, not a John Deere. DD Yemilia is hoping that the bean check will be a big step towards her braces.

We turned out the lights to watch because we are under the full harvest moon. Cloud of dust flying.

Unfortunately, there's a ring around the moon. Matches the forecast. We are all up against it due to weather. Tomorrow it might even snow. On Friday we got 1.6 inches of rain. The ground is still awfully soft.

Rain, rain go away ...

October is supposed to be our driest month, but this year it rained every three days. Across the state only a fraction of the soybeans are in and even less of corn acres.

Soybeans aren't as weather-proof as corn.

However, we did get a good third cutting of hay on some of the fields. Got a portion of the wheat in. The salesman from the seed company says "All you have to do is get it in the ground." Hope so!

And, our broiler chicks are really grwoing. Yasha's chicks that he brought home from first grade grew up and we are keeping them as layers. They look like small turkeys but I do believe they are laying.

Not everything is a disaster, in other words.

Show me the money ...

... just because we're getting a little worried. All but one load of wheat went to one elevator. Almost a month ago. We're looking at, oh, I don't know ... about a quarter of our income for the whole year.

No check has arrived. Praying ... praying ... praying ...

Property taxes are due Friday. The state legislators crow about tax relief for homeowners but shifted the burden to farmers and other property owners, since the money had to come from somewhere.

Our last year's taxes came in two installments -- December 2008 and January 2009.

*sigh*

Harvest continues

DH and Grandpa had to make some decisions about harvest. The corn is wet, but we had a lot of wind damage with some rows lodged (tumbled into each other) and some down completely. The remains of Hurrican Ike went through here with about 8 inches of rain and high winds that hit the drought-damaged corn pretty bad.

Since it's fragile, "the men" including DS1 figured they would be money ahead to harvest now, even if we have to pay for drying, than take a chance on losing more to weather damage.

DH hired a Mennonite neighbor with a smaller combine for the job. We sold our combine years ago. In other years we've had neighbors and cousins with bigger machinery harvest, but to get all we can out of the field we needed someone who was content to go slow and proceed carefully.

Break-down's ...

Neighbor's combine broke a chain
Disk -- broken bolts. It's "shedded" until spring, though.

Harvest, part 2

Yesterday morning I went off on a tangent about the cows getting out.

Yesterday afternoon "the men" including our 10-year-old DS1, finished harvesting soybeans. Since the weather turned off dry from the county fair to the start of school -- about six weeks -- we wondered how the beans would turn out.

I was surprised. On the lighter soil, they yielded as well as any other year. On the heavy ground, where I expected a higher yield, they did not do well at all. My theory is that the clay in our heavy ground set up like concrete and the roots couldn't get anything out of the ground. At least they were not a total loss.

Grandpa finished the last field of hay. It is so sweet and green it looks like it belongs in a salad bowl. DH calls this candy. Dairy cows in milk make the best use of it.

Now we are planting wheat.

Here's the break-down list:
On the tractors --
Transmission trouble
Grain wagons --
Flat tires
Disk -- broken hitch, needed welding
Nothing on the hay baler
Nothing on the hay wagons.
Big sigh of relief ... nothing expensive (this week, anyway)