Farm Friday - Harvest Happenings

Harvest is a busy time of the year on our farm.  The days start early and the nights end late.  We work as hard as mother nature allows us to bring in both our corn and soybean crop.  When I find myself at home I play "catch up" with all of the house work and try to cross off a couple things (or at least one) from my to-do list.  And since today is Friday, I thought it'd be a fun excuse to ignore my messy living room and breakfast dishes in the sink and write a Harvest Happenings blog post.

My tractor riding buddy Miss L and I

Harvest this year has been going a little slow and to tell you the truth, has been full of the unexpected.  We normally like to start harvesting our soybeans and then switch to corn.  But this year, due to flooding in September, I think we've switched back and forth between soybeans and corn four times because we're simply just going to fields that are dry enough to be worked in.  And you might not think switching back and forth isn't that big of a deal, but it takes time and slows down harvest.  We have to completely clean out the combine, catch cart, wagons, auger, etc. and switch the combine's head between corn and soybeans.  We store and sell our corn and soybeans separately so you don't want corn mixed in with your soybeans and vice versa.

Here is a picture of me dumping corn from my catch cart
to a set of wagons.  Every piece of equipment used for harvest
has to be cleaned out when we switch between corn and soybeans.

And talking about that September flooding, that is causing concern for a couple different reasons.  First, is that the ground is still not completely dry and very soft.  While taking out the crop, we have to be careful while driving in the field so we don't get stuck.  We also are waiting to do any fall tillage work because things are so wet that we'd end up just compacting the soil more, rather than breaking it up which is the benefit in the first place.  The second reason for concern is the crop health and stand.  Many, if not actually all, of our corn and soybeans were in standing water at some point.  This has caused our stalks to deteriorate and the chance of fungus growing on our plants to increase.

Can you see that line along the bottom of the corn stalks?
That is a water line from the flooding we had in September.

But this fall hasn't been all gloomy.  Part of the unexpected of this year is that our crops are yielding average to above average.  That makes the increase stress of harvesting in these non-ideal conditions a little better to handle.  Also, my favorite part of harvest is always the time spent making memories with our family.  Sometimes it gets a little crazy having our kids out in the field and so involved during harvest, but it is so much fun too.  How lucky are our kids that they get to be with their parents and grandparents everyday?!

Miss R taking the customary
"First Fall" steering wheel photo in the tractor

So this is a little bit of everything I've been thinking about, stressing about, and enjoying lately.  I also did my first "Farm Friday Facebook Live" from the tractor last week and I hope to find time to do it again today.  What questions do you have about corn and soybean harvest?  I'll try to answer those questions in my next Facebook Live and on here through my next Harvest Happenings.  Remember to Comment for a Cause!

Rain, Rain Go Away, Come Again When We're Done Planting

Last year I talked about the drought many times and even this year I've continued to talk about the drought.  Well, I don't think anyone in our area, and actually throughout the state of Iowa, is concerned about being in a drought anymore...  Let's just say we've gotten our fair share of rain lately!

Here is last week's Drought Monitor map for the state of Iowa
(I guess whoever is incharge of updating is still on their Memorial Day vacation
because it wasn't updated this morning)
I have circled the county where we live and farm.
As of last week we still lived in an "Abnormally Dry" area

On Saturday we received around 2 inches of rain and then overnight into Sunday we received an additional 4 inches of rain!  Normally on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend My Farmer, LP and I go to church and then go to a Memorial Day service at the cemetery - not this year...  Instead we were busy making sure everything was alright at our current house, our new home and at our hog site.  

We've gotten pretty accustom to water in our basement at our current house if it rains a lot.  The key is, if water reaches the apple tree, there is water in our basement.  Water was at the apple tree probably by 5am on Sunday...  

On Sunday water was ponded past our apple tree.
Today though can see how far the water has retreated since then
but you can still see how wet it is.

Our sump pump has been working nonstop since Sunday at our current house and finally today it is taking a breather and only pumps every so often.  I think I might actually be able to do some laundry today because now the laundry washer's water will have somewhere to go!

Our new house only had a little bit of water in the basement thankfully and our hog buildings were fine.  We were a little worried the hog barns were going to get water into them on Sunday morning but the rain stopped just in time that we didn't have to stress about that.

But stress is still high as we have large ponds in all of our fields.  Not only are we worrying about drowning out the corn that is planted in some of those fields, we are also worrying about the corn and soybeans we still have to plant!  And it doesn't look like this week there will be a good chance of getting field work done with a chance of rain every day.  Because the season is starting to go late, we are starting to talk about switching some of our intended corn fields into soybeans fields and have also talked with our crop insurance agent about preventive planting acres.

This is a view to the east from our acreage where you can see several "ponds".
On Sunday these were one giant "lake"!

I guess the only thing that needs to happen this week, so we can get our minds off of all of this, is to have a baby!  Every morning My Farmer talks to MP through my stomach telling him or her that it would be a good time to arrive!

Have you been dealing with flood conditions where you live?  Do you have any questions about planting this spring?