Bailing

Harvest 2019 is off to an extremely late start. Frustrating weather conditions have pushed back us back by at least two weeks from the normal for around here. With this late start, our family has only been in the field for three days which is simply unheard of for the middle of October. And of those measly three days in the field so far this harvest, only one day was combining corn.The wet bin is now empty, the dryer is silent and all attention is on cutting beans while we get that small glimmer of sunshine in between the gloomy fall weather we’ve been having lately. I miss my loud corn dryer with that famous flame and roar that usually lulls me to sleep during the fall. Last night I was lulled to sleep by the clothes dryer, which is another odd sound this time of year. Usually mom is soaking up the last of the sunshine days with all of our laundry on the clothesline but it has even been tough to get the clothes dry outside.



Another unheard of thing for this time of year is that we are also still trying to finish up the hay. Todd was home from college for a few days last week and instead of helping in the corn field, he was cuttting hay. Yesterday it was finally ready to rake and bale. With everyone else in the family busy doing beans, Dad called Luke and I out of school at noon. You know Dad has run out of options when we get called out of school to bale! Even though Mom does have a teaching degree that she has never used, I was really missing Dad’s patience and in depth explanations on how the baler operates. Instead, Mom was trying to refresh us in a quick Bailing 101 class before setting us free on our own in the hay field.



After a long afternoon in the baler, I was feeling pretty good on my way home. The fields all got baled before they got tough. We got along even better than I expected and we were home before dark. I only had one bale I kicked out without any wrap. It was operator error. I opened the gate to kick the big bale out before the wrapping was done. Lucky for me it was in the very back of the field, not along the road, and in one of our own fields, not a customers! I was pretty excited to be putting balers in the shed as third crop hay was finally finished. But then I remembered, cornstalk season is just beginning!?! What have I done? I might be in a baler until Christmas! I shouldn’t have done so well, now dad will be calling all the time. I seriously need to look into changing my cell number! On the bright side, at least I might get to miss more school!




~ Kesley Holdgrafer