Corn harvest.....

......or at least day one of corn harvest!  Reynald and Alicia and I did our first picking of corn for freezing on Sunday.  We have been eating corn on the cob all week, but Sunday was the day to get the first batch in to the freezer.

Corn picked and a few ears husked.

Blanching the corn to cut off the cobs.

Reynald has this wonderful battery powered fillet knife that is works super good for cutting the kernels off the cobs.

Kernels cut off the cobs, ready to be packaged and put in to the freezer.

Perhaps not the smartest choice, cocktails and using a knife, but I promise, we were safe!

Peaches

We finished harvest last week on Tuesday.  Will, there is one patch of spring wheat that is still too green to harvest, but it's not much, only one truck load, so we say that we are finished with harvest!

Thursday morning we went to Spokane to catch up on some shopping that has been neglected, but mostly we wanted to go to Greenbluff, and pick peaches.  We did this last year and we had such a good time, and got such lovely fruit.  The same was true this year.  Once again, we got a little greedy, picking more fruit that we needed.

And, we brought home a box of apples for eating.

Saturday most of the fruit was ripe and ready for canning, so I spent the whole day working on that project.  There is still some waiting to ripen but the majority is packed away in jars for winter consumption!

Morning Glory

One of my farm jobs is spraying morning glory, aka field bindweed, in our summer fallow fields.  I will have this job for as long as I can drive the gator and spray!  We have been treating our morning glory patches for as long as I can remember and my dad treated them before that.  This is a weed  you have to admire for its tenacity! 

Yesterday I spent all day on this project.  I'm quite certain that I missed more than one patch, and the ones that I found will be back two years from now, though not as healthy and vigorous.  I am definitely making progress, but I don't think we will ever completely eradicate this noxious, though pretty weed. 

The gator with the spray tank is the best way to apply product to the morning glory patches.  I love this little guy for spraying!

Usually the morning glory flowers are this pretty white color, but sometimes they are pink. 

I admit that I have a hard time killing them when they are this pretty, but if you let them go, the rhizomes roots will take over the fields, sucking up our precious little moisture and deeply cutting yields.  

The Terminal

New to truck drivers this year, is the ability to haul to Ritzville Warehouse Templin Terminal.  This is a huge grain transfer station, just outside of the town of Ritzville.  Previous years, Ritzville Warehouse has contracted with commercial truckers to transfer grain from all their satellite stations to the terminal, where it is loaded on to trains and shipped out.

This year, management decided to allow farmers with semi trucks to haul to the terminal, vastly reducing the amount of grain that Ritzville Warehouse has to transfer themselves.  This only works for farmers that are in a relatively close proximity to the Terminal.

We were able to haul our spring wheat crop to the Terminal, but not our winter wheat crop.  Good news for us, our winter wheat was yielding too much grain for us to get back to the field in time, without making the combines wait.  Our little Tokio warehouse is closer to our fields.  The spring wheat yields are not as good, so we are able to get to the Terminal and back, though we still have little down time from our furthest field.

Here are a few photos of what the Terminal looks like!

Every  truck has one of these card readers that an electronic eye ball reads as you drive on to the scale.

Then there is this touch screen where you enter your information each time you bring in a load of grain.  My family was pretty sure I was going to fry this thing the first time I got near it, given my track record with electronics!  But, so far, I have not!!

This is one of the screens that comes up.  After this is, you enter the commodity that you are hauling (soft white wheat) and then the next screen is your farm number, then if spits out this ticket for you to give to the guy at the dump pit.

This is the ticket that it spits out.

Then there is a screen that tells you which pile to go to.  This means ground pile number 6.

Here I am, emptying in to  pit at ground pile number 6.

This belt take the grain to the top of the pile.  

This pile is full.  There's about 1 million bushels of grain per pile.

Then, when you are done, you go back and weigh out and this machine spits out our ticket for that load.  You get a ticket after each load.  I was in a state of high anxiety the first day we hauled here, but now I'm more used to it.  I still like my little Tokio warehouse best though!

Now I'm finished unloading my truck and ready to go back for another.  

Saturday there was a train that was waiting to unload.  There are 100 grain cars in a unit train.  This one is most likely bringing red wheat from Montana to store here until the price goes up a little more.  

This photo shows a pile that has been prepared to take the grain that the train has hauled in.  You can also see the difference in color between the piles in the back ground.  The closer pile is red wheat and the two piles in the distance are soft white wheat that have all been hauled in from our area.  

Harvest profile #4 Reynald

Reynald is still the high boss of our crew, though Alicia is giving him a run for his money!!  The tasks that he does in a day are too numerous to list.

This is his least favorite job to do......blowing off the combines every morning.  It's an important job though, as it reduces the risk of fire by keeping the build up of chaff and dust to a minimum.  

After he's finished servicing the combines every morning, he is ready to start his day on the combine!

The lunch fairy packs breakfast, lunch and dinner in his Coleman cooler.  Lucky fellow!

But his favorite and most frequent job, is telling us all what to do!

Another sunrise, sunset post!

Living here and responsibly working the land, we are rewarded daily in many, many ways.  One thing we all appreciate is the wide open vistas, especially from the field, or our front porch!  The last few days have offered spectacular beginnings and endings to our day.

The sun was just beginning to rise in the east.

And in the western sky the moon was setting.  

A brief thunder storm passed through this particular morning, leaving behind some dramatic clouds that the sun painted with amazing color.

And the sunset.......

2019 Harvest Profile #3 Alicia

Harvest simply can't happen without Alicia.  She is our field manager and manage she does!  She expertly drives the bank out wagon, keeping the combines empty of their cut grain and the trucks full.  Every morning she fills our trucks with fuel, services her tractor and helps service the combines.  Mostly though she is quick with a smile and a plan for the day.  We can't do this job of farming with out her.  We are so proud of her!

Harvest scenes

Here are a few photos from Monday when we moved to the Home Place field.  There is a quiet and calm spirit on the land.  Also, a pretty good crop!  My dad is smiling.....

Getting started at the home place.  Reynald, Alicia and Shawn.