Harvest Time!

The culmination of what John has been learning to do this year is finally upon us. It's harvest time! They started harvesting corn last Saturday. They got in two and a half good days and then yesterday it poured, which has put the kibosh on harvesting for now. (The corn needs to be dry for the combine to be effective.) We got 4.5 inches of rain yesterday and the fields are a slippery, muddy mess. We are supposed to get more rain tomorrow, so I'm not sure when it will be dry enough for them to start back up again. But before the rain came, the kids and I got a chance to go out and see the men and the machines in action. It was a fun outing for us. We met John at the grain bins, where he was in the middle of unloading his last load of corn for the night.You can see the corn coming out of the auger and falling into the bin if you look closely.

The kids were excited to see Daddy drive a really big truck (after all, three of them are little boys). They also thought it was pretty cool to watch the corn come out of the bottom of the truck, fall into the hopper, and then cycle its way up the auger to the bin. They were excited to find little kernels of corn on the ground and wanted to start collections and bring them all home. I'm sure corn kernels won't be as exciting to them once we have been out here for awhile, but for now it's all new to them and everything is fascinating.

After the truck was unloaded, we headed over to one of the fields to see the combine in action. They had all seen the combine last summer when we were out here and had gotten to sit inside of it, but it was turned off and stored away at the time. We saw their great Grandpa driving the combine as soon as we got close to the field. He pulled up to an auger wagon and unloaded the grain that the combine had just harvested. For those of you not familiar with these awesome machines, let me explain what a combine does. As you drive it through the corn fields, it pulls up almost the entire stalk of corn. It then pulls the ear of corn off the stalk, shucks the corn, strips the kernels off the cob, sends the grain (kernels) to one part of the combine, chops up the stuff you don't want (leaves, cob, etc) and spits it out the back (back onto the ground). The kernels are sent into an auger (those long arm spout looking things) that allow the kernels to be unloaded into a truck called an auger wagon. This all happens in less than a minute. It's actually pretty amazing to watch. The electronic equipment is pretty cool too. It keeps track of all sorts of data related to the corn, such as the GPS coordinates of your field, the moisture level of your corn (it needs to be within a certain range), how much grain you have already harvested, and more. (Click here to see a short video on how a combine works) Grandpa's combine can harvest 12 rows of corn at a time! The highlight of the evening came when Grandpa said Luke could ride with him for the next round. I think Luke almost exploded, while Nathanael tried to hold back the tears. Luke loved it and could not stopped smiling when his turn was over. We thought Grandpa was going to be done for the night, but then he said he was going out one more time and asked if someone else wanted a ride. I have never seen Nathanael move so fast in my life!!! It was pretty funny, actually. So he got to have a turn too. Micah and Hannah are both hoping they will be next for combine rides.

Nathanael is saying he will take care of the farm for everyone when John is too old. We will see what comes of that!