Harvest is in Full Swing!

I've said before, if Bruce is in MN fishing, he is smiling, that is also true when he is in the combine harvesting the crops. This is his one big payday, after over a years work. His crop year starts in late summer the year before, when he goes to field days to see the new or the tried and true hybrids and how they performed. That is when Bruce selects the varieties from his seed salesman. After harvest, soil tests and nutrients are put on and some field work done. Then the fields can sleep through the winter, hopefully under a nice blanket of snow to protect them.

Spring comes, more field work interrupted by a flood this year, not a good thing, planting, spraying, cultivating, and finally, walking the fields to get those few elusive weeds.

Suddenly fall is here, the silage is cut and piled and the beans start turning color and dropping leaves. Time to get the combine out, put the Bergman Hitches on the tractors and all the wagons and head to the field.

What is a Bergman Hitch you ask?? It is the best thing my hubby was shamed into buying by our tax lady's husband! We were as a tax appointment and Meri asked how harvest went. I said it's getting harder for me to hook up wagons, as they get bigger, the tongues are heavier and one has a bend from a previous accident that really doesn't want to extend. I found myself in and out of the tractor more than once just to hook up one wagon!! AND I WASN'T GETTING ANY YOUNGER!! (I was getting a little worked up just reliving it!!!)

Meri yelled at her husband Gary, "Get in here and tell Bruce he needs to buy some Bergman Hitches!" Gary came in the room, looked at Bruce, tsk - tsk-ed and shook his head, "What are you thinking, you need to do this for your wife!" Bruce looked a little sheepish, I was feeling quite smug and a few weeks later we drove to Odebolt, Ia and picked up several Bergman Hitches. They are the NUTS!!

See that 'Y', you back up and it slides under the pipe with the red top, the ring under it latches securely to the hook on the tractor, Bingo! I'm hooked to the wagon. To unhook, I simply raise the back window and pull the red plastic cable that releases the hitch. I bless the wonderful person who designed this, it takes all of the work out of hooking wagons.

(It used to really tick me off when I took an empty wagon back to the field, unhook it and prepare to hook up a full one. Just as I backed up, Bruce would call me on the radio to take the empty wagon to another part of the field, AAUUGGHHH!!!!

 

That no longer upsets me.

 

I'm happy to take wagons and place them where ever Bruce needs them, I have a great attachment for my Bergman Hitches.

 

I think I feel about them as Bruce does his combine. I think he is smiling, look at those lovely beans piled high in the hopper.

 

From the hopper to my wagon, that I'm pulling with a tractor that has no door.

 

This is what's left of my door, a nut came off of the tension bar, a gust of wind slammed the door back against the tractor and shattered it.

 

I'm just lucky it's still warm out.

 

Missing a door wasn't so bad because I was just hauling into the farm and dumping in the bin.

 

 

From the wagon, into the hopper and up the auger into the bin, the hardest part is dragging the swing hopper over to the wagon. Then I get out my book and read while the wagon unloads.

 

That ended when the bin was full, it was time to haul to town where there is always a line up. I'm W-A-A-A-Y back, behind several semi's and a couple of straight trucks, not even in sight of the elevator.

 

 

Makes my two little wagons look like a paltry load, doesn't it? Good thing I have a book and it's still warm because I still don't have a door.

 

Finally, the scale is in sight.

 

 

I get 'probed', a sample of every load goes into the office to be tested for moisture and other stuff.

 

 

Mike unloads me, this is the old leg so it's slow going, hence the big backlog of trucks. 

 

Our coop built a new dump that is supposed to be much, Much, MUCH faster and it was supposed to be open by now. Maybe tomorrow?

 

 

The last trip that day was a nightmare, a huge line that didn't move for an hour. I took a nap in the tractor. I finally borrowed a phone to call Bruce to tell him I had no idea when I would be coming home.

 

I at least am in sight of the elevator....

 

....the ones behind me, not so lucky!

 

I drove home in the dark with no lights on the wagon, sure that I would find Bruce in his chair watching a ball game. When I had to walk up the road in the dark to retrieve my car, I worked myself into a snit that he didn't even come help me!!

 

But when I drove home, I found a dark house and a message that Bruce was still combining by the pond and to come get him.

 

Oops! Sorry!!