The farming side of farming

in pictures ....

 This was about the extent of our harvest this year.  Typically, harvest lasts between 2 and 3 weeks.  This year it was 2 days.  We need rain in a desperate way, folks.  By rain I mean a gully-washer.  I daily wake up singing, "Bring on the Rain".

Even though harvest was short, that does not mean that the work is sparse.  Farming is a 24/7, 365 days a year job.  Something has to be done every day.  Besides taking care of the animals daily, there is constant field prep and recovery going on.  I thought for sure CR would be able to come home for lunch, though, so Kirby and I whipped him up his favorite desert.  Then he called and said he would not be able to come home, that Daddy Ray would just go pick up Dairy Queen for him since they were near there.  Then I sent him this tempting picture .....

 I know, I am so mean.  I told him not to have his dad go get him lunch.  We surprised him with a picnic.  When we got there, all we saw was dust blowing ...

 Here they are running what is called a rolling cutter.  It goes through and does exactly that.  The blades roll through the field and cut.  They cut stalks.  They cut dead grain that never produced.  They cut whithered sticks of depressed crop.  And the dust blows for miles.

As you can see, Patton is very impressed with his dad's job.  And Kirby likes to eat her daddy's lunch instead of her own:

 CR needed me to run him over to another field about 5 miles away, so Kirby stayed to hold up the tailgate on "Daddy Ray's junky truck" as she likes to refer to it.

 As we were driving, I noticed a storm to the north and south of us.  I stopped and prayed that the 2 would join, and as CR added "make the perfect storm".  Oh his whit.

 Not 3 minutes later, the sky was falling.  And the temperature.  It went from 97 to 75 in about 5 minutes.

When I returned to get Kirby she was having a melt down with Daddy Ray.  She did not know what this foreign object was that was getting her wet.  She thought she would melt.  

CR had to take the combine to the farm after unloading the header, so with the rain I decided to follow him for other's safety.  You would be surprised how many tractor/car accidents there are in the country. Also, the other day someone asked me what FM stood for on our road.  I explained to them it was farm-to-market.  I got the blankest stare ever.  This is why; the road leads you from your farm to the market.  

"Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."  Matthew 9:7