2014 Harvest...

When we woke up on Saturday morning, there were over 30 acres of beans still standing, and a bunch of acres of corn.

When we went to the barn for evening milking, the fields were bare.

Here are a few pictures of the corn and bean harvest, courtesy of our friend and neighbor Steve Emerson. His pictures turned out way better than mine did!  Thanks Steve!

First, they harvested the corn at the two locations where we rent ground...

The combine can hold a lot of shelled corn, but when it was possible, the grain cart drove along beside the combine...

When he was full, he would go and empty his load into the grain truck. These next pictures are ones that I took here at home) ...

This truck wasn't full yet, but it sure didn't take long to fill it...

I got a kick out of watching the cows watch the combine.  This is Patty, mesmerized or perhaps confused about what's going on.  Wouldn't she love to hop the fence and get into that corn field?!  She'll have to wait for that corn later.  It will be dried, toasted and brought back to the farm as we need it.  There goes one of the full grain trucks up the road behind her...

When the corn was finished, they switched headers on the combine and harvested the beans.  (one more picture courtesy of Steve)  It was a windy, but beautiful day.  I'm sure glad all that dust wasn't blowing in my windows!

The corn yields were great this year!  I don't know exact numbers, but I heard talk of over 200 bushels per acre.  It was a little wet though, so between low grain prices and being docked a bit for drying, the final numbers won't be so high.  The beans were plenty dry, and yielded okay.

It's a great feeling to be finished with harvest for the year.  It's not time to rest, though! Right now Jim's wrapping the last of the hay for the year, and then it'll be time to bale corn fodder and haul manure.

The leaves are beautiful about now, and have only begun to fall.  We've been having absolutely beautiful weather, and once again I am reminded of how thankful I am to be able to experience the change in seasons every year!

A "Finished" Experiment...

Way back in April, when the corn was first planted, I decided to do an "experiment".  I followed the corn from the day it was planted until it was harvested.  You can follow the growth of the corn  by clicking here... (Each post contains a link that takes you back further, until you get to the first one!)

Here is the final result...

That corn stalk took on a new look yesterday morning...

It quickly turned into this...

Now it needs to ferment in the silo until it feeds a hungry cow.  Then, it will eventually turn into this...

The cycle continues!

Combining Corn...

Yesterday's rain put the combining on hold, and the combine sat in the neighbors' field waiting for some nicer weather.  (The little boys who live there just love watching the equipment...and they wanted to know if the combine would stay at their house forever? ...sorry guys!  :)  )

Thankfully, the rain only amounted to a scant half inch, so by mid morning today, the combine was back in the corn field...

This is the view looking down from inside the cab of the combine.  Most of the corn that was combined today was standing nicely, like this.  There were several areas of the fields, though, that were down.  The black arms that you see are intended to help pull downed corn up off the ground and into the combine...

This is looking back behind the driver's seat into the grain bin, through the dirty window.  After the corn kernels are separated from the cob, they go into this bin, which holds 225 bushels of shelled corn...

When the bin is full, the driver hears a warning beep that it needs to be emptied.  In this picture, we're heading for that 18-wheeler that was waiting along side the road...



All finished!  The combine with the header attached is too wide to safely travel on the road, so he will take off the header and pull it behind him on a cart...



I learned a lot today riding on the combine! 

 I learned about how the hot stretch we had this summer came at a bad time...right when the corn was pollinating.  As a result, some of the ears were short and not filled out completely. 

 I learned how this kind of stress during pollination can actually cause the stem (?) where the ear is attached to the corn stalk to be very thin.  As a result, some of the ears fall to the ground before harvest, and are wasted.

The corn yields were decent, but not so great, as compared to the soybeans...soybeans are much more forgiving in bad weather.  But we're thankful for what we got...looking at all the weather extremes we had this year, it could have been much, much worse!

You'd never guess, that looking at the blue skies in these pictures,  that we're expected to have cold rain, and between 6-8 inches of snow tomorrow!  I'm never really ready for that...and it's only October! 

But now that the corn is off, maybe it could snow.  Just a little.