corn harvest 2013 kick off

Yesterday was the calm before the storm. My husband and I (he really needs a nick name, doesn't he?) went on our pre-harvest date. We try to do that every year. Once harvest starts, you just don't know when you'll have free time to go out and do anything again. 

We ventured up to the big city and wandered around the mall a little. Our intention was to trade in my husband's phone at the Apple store since his was 3 years old and it's been doing funny things lately... like turning off on it's own and not wanting to come back on for an hour. I wanted him to have something good and reliable for harvest. Of course Apple was sold out and we couldn't upgrade his phone. Apparently the new phone just came out and everyone had to have one all at the same time? I guess we just wait until ours go bad before we upgrade. 

We treated ourselves to some Olive Garden, roamed around Super Target and slowly drove home taking in the beautiful fall scenery. 

Tonight, after work, the combine was fired up and the fields were opened to get some corn in the dryer to make sure it's working properly. We started off doing granny's field for her. She has the the sandier ground so her field always gets done first. 

I always love it when a field is first opened up. The tunnels are fun! 

We are having a few issues this year getting things going. My husband doesn't quite have the combine calibrated to where he would like it to be. Right now he's studying some literature to see what needs to be done when he gets off work tomorrow. 

With our older equipment, it always take a few days to get the kinks worked out but usually it's smooth sailing after that. At least it's not green... then it would be taking even longer to get the kinks worked out ;)

 We still use a fleet of gravity wagons. I thought for sure we'd be getting rid of those once we purchased a grain cart. Nope. Let's use it all they say.... :) We usually look like a train going by with our fleet and various colors. Every tractor is whipped out and put to use.

This is our newest tractor. It was mine and my husband's first tractor purchase together. It's an old 2+2. I worked ground with it last spring and fell in love! This is our first harvest using it. He's hooked up to the grain cart. 

The dinner wagon came (me) and delivered a pizza for the guys. The ability to execute a tailgate picnic is one of the many reasons I drive a truck.

Then granny came trotting along on a mission with roast beef sandwhiches. Oops. We need to coordinate more often. Let's say everyone ate very well tonight. 

Granny loves harvest time. She's always anxious to hear how well her corn did. My husband was excited to tell her there was 200 bu an acre showing up on the yield monitor and in some spots were even doing 250. After last year's harvest and the drought, things are starting to look up.

It's almost go time, people! Just a few more days and it will be full on harvest for us. Is there anybody else in the fields yet? 

I was guessing we would be in before October and hey, it's September 30th!