Corn Harvest 2013 - It's Finally Over!

Most years corn harvest in this part of the country occurs in August to the beginning of September....at least that's what I'm told, cause out of 6 corn harvest that I have been here for that has only occurred one time. But that's what I am told is "normal" for corn harvest.

Well since we had to plant corn in some fields 3 times and the planting dates spanned from early April all the way to June, harvest was also spread out for all the farmers around here, us included.  

We didn't actually have very much of the early April corn this year. Caleb and his dad thought it was best not to plant it then because at the time they were calling for cool wet temps right after we would have planted it. With the soils on our farms that's just asking for trouble and they knew they would have to re-plant so instead of wasting the time and money it would cost to put in the corn we waited to plant most of it till the weather looked better. The sad thing was the weather never really looked all that much better. We planted in May  and then got cool wet weather following that planting too and it wrecked a lot of our corn. 

So then June rolls around and we are still trying to plant corn. We have fields that have 1/2 stands and so we  trying to decide on weather to plant corn back in these fields or if we should tear it all up and just plant soybeans.  

The problem with planting corn at this time is we are starting to run out of water. And by that I mean if we do get rain it's small pop-up showers, so you can't really count on that for a source.  And all this June corn would be pollinating at the end of July to the beginning of August....a time of the year known for being extra dry.

After finding out we had taken out re-plant insurance on the corn this year I suggested that we re-plant corn, cause it was going to be cheaper to plant than the beans and there was no guarantee that the beans would produce either and Caleb had kinda been thinking the same thing.  So after doing a lot of praying and trusting that God would take care of it we put a lot of corn in the ground in the month of June.

Since it was a crazy busy Spring I knew that we wouldn't have time for a big vacation so I told Caleb all I wanted to do was go on a float trip / canoe trip. So early in the month of July picked a date in August to go. I invited some of our friends to go with us and there you have it we were going floating.  Well farmers Your Welcome....cause the original concern with this trip was that there wouldn't be any water and we would have to drag our boats...instead we got woken up at 6:30 in the morning by the staff telling us we need to evacuate our cabin because they were scared it might flood. No float trip for me :( On a side note, there were three couple that went and we had a blast!! We stayed up till 12:30-1:00 am and it wasn't cause of a sick kid...lol.

As crazy as it was planting in June, we trusted  and God provided. If we could go back and do it again we wouldh have planted all of it in the month of June cause it was so much better that all the rest of our corn....who knew!?!?

So here is about 4,622 pictures that I took (give or take a thousand) of this year's corn harvest.  Most of these are from the early harvest (end of September - beginning of October) cause after that Caleb was in the tractor drilling wheat, so we spent more time in the wheat field taking pictures.

I don't know why, but these kinds of pictures are always my favorite.

That was before this guy came along and now he makes every picture so much better! 

Also he insisted on riding the combine every time we were at the field. If he wasn't able to there would be a major meltdown occurring.

He may look like his momma, but he is so much like his daddy....when concentrating we have to stick out our tongue, good grief.....and we are totally obsessed with everything farming. There could be worse things.

At this point in time this is probably my favorite picture of all cause it has my two favorite men in it!

If you are standing in the right place you don't have to worry about getting nailed by this stuff. The problem comes when you leave the windows down on your truck and it is down wind from this. Oops!

Like I said concentrating = tongue out of mouth.

This is about all you see of me when we are in the field cause this is the only way I get a picture taken of me. I think I was about 7 months here.  

The Big Red Barn was by one of our corn fields and well it just looked so pretty this evening!

 

Every now and then we would have an "accident" and corn would get spilled on the the ground, but it sure is fun to play in when your a kid.

As an adult it stinks, cause you have to shovel all of up and get it back in the truck....I'm glad I was pregnant this year and didn't have to do this!

We were so thankful to finally get the last 30 acres of corn out last week and have been going strong trying to get the beans out and replanting a lot of our wheat. 

 
I still haven't popped yet. This was me last weekend at 39 weeks. My official due date is the 22nd, this Friday, and I am good with anytime after today, cause it's suppose to rain tonight and the guys are trying to get a few more things done before it does....and I would rather not have my husband trying to run away from the hospital to go to the field. 

Later,

JP