Carrot harvest

I harvested my carrots a few days ago... all four of them. Okay, so I ate the fifth one weeks ago. I don't know what happened to the rest. Anyway, here are my carrots, next to a gallon bucket.

Yeah, they were BIG! See how those three fit in the bucket?

This strange creature had 13 legs! And numerous tops. I don't know why. The others had several tops, too.

I couldn't even fit that crazy monster in my 5-gallon storage bucket, so I had to break all the legs off and put them in the fridge. Here's the top minus its legs.

Have you ever grown a carrot like that?!

Soybean harvest 2015 complete

Here's a video I took last evening as there were just a few rounds left to combine in the last soybean field. Sorry, but you'll have to view it on a computer in order to see it, I believe. It's a pretty impressive combine, though. :)

(All that dust. Is it any wonder my allergies kick in big time this time of year.)

Now it's time to start combining the corn......

Heading to the finish line

I took this photo one gorgeous morning a couple of weeks ago. The fields ripe-for-harvest looked so golden and beautiful that morning.

Yesterday that cornfield got harvested. It was the last one to go. Here's the combine on the left just after emptying its load into the catch cart on the right.

The loaded cart then heads off to empty into a waiting grain truck.

Here comes the combine, taking 8 rows at a time.

Look at how shiny and clean that corn head is, from getting constantly polished by the corn stalks and leaves.

The rest of the combine is not so clean, after having harvested many, many dusty acres of soybeans and corn. You can see the dust in the air as it heads back into some more rows.

Below is the catch cart emptying into the truck.

And so it went for a few more hours until the field was emptied of its corn. Harvest is now complete for 2014, and the combine is tucked away in the shed for the winter. Hurray!

If you want to see the combine in action, look at the video on last year's post. Noting the date on that post, I see that we finished 6 days earlier this year! It's still not record early by any means, but not record late, either. One year they had to finish in the spring. Yup, it snowed too much too soon. So we're always thankful when we don't have that kind of a harvest season!

Harvest sunset

Friday evening I happened to glance out the garage window and saw the beautiful glow of the sun setting behind the trees.

After the sun had set, I moved over a ways and caught the silhouette of the  barely moving windmill in the remaining glow. There was hardly a breath of a breeze that evening.

Did you notice the combine going down the road in the photo above? Here's another photo, cropped so you can see it better:

The dust, from the road and from what the combines stirred up in the fields, just hung in the air, and I think that's what made for the brilliant glow of the sunset.

It was an incredibly beautiful and peaceful evening.

Nearing the end

Remember that field of corn we watched grow all summer? Here's what was left of it early Saturday evening:

That dark spot in the middle was a drowned-out area. You can see the combine above on the far right of the photo. (BTW, click on any photo to enlarge it.) Here it is closer, unloading corn into the catch cart:

And even a little closer yet:

I managed to get a little video footage of the process, although I was losing daylight fast, so it's kinda dark. The catch cart left to be emptied into a waiting truck, and at the end of the video is where the combine is heading across the field to cut around that area in the center.

There was only one field left to combine after that one, and hopefully that will get finished today and harvest will be complete for this year. Yay!

In case you noticed the flashing red light at the neighbor's... no, it was not an emergency vehicle, but only a yard light. It's just the way the camera handled the lights. If you watch closely, you can see that the tractor and combine lights flicker a bit of red, too, just not as noticeably.

Golden fields

As I was mowing Friday evening, I couldn't help noticing how beautiful the fields looked in the soon-to-be-setting sun.

Remember this field from just over a month ago?

This is it now:

It's ripening fast...

... and will soon be ready for harvest.

There are a lot of soybean fields in various stages of maturity around the countryside. We have some that are about ready to combine, where others, like this one, were planted later and have a ways to go yet. But they'll be changing fast.

Incidentally, in case you wondered (I'm sure you all did)... this is what I mow with:

I figured as long as I'd stopped and had the camera out, I'd snap a pic of it, too. It's kind of a monster machine, and I love it... it covers a lot of ground in a hurry!

Harvest time

I took these pictures over a week ago. They're quite outdated, as harvest is almost finished, but I wanted to show them to you, anyway. I've noticed different times when driving along the roads this fall that the fields of grain, harvested or not, had such a beautiful, bright golden color to them this year. I don't remember ever seeing them quite like that before. The leaves are even somewhat shiny. I can only figure that it must be because of the dryness. Other years they seem much more faded and dull-looking.

I tried to capture that pretty goldenness in these photos. Click on the pics to enlarge them and see it better.

This one below particularly shows the shininess.

Here are some close-ups, just for fun.

All the above corn is gone now. Harvest has gone amazingly fast this year, with minimal breakdowns and especially with no precipitation to hold things up. Of course, the farmers haven't had any break, either. They've just kept going and going and going. But by the end of the week, everything should be pretty much wrapped up in this area, with only tillage left. I think it's record-setting early, and the yields have been good, despite the lack of rain.

Speaking of dust...

Mark mentioned the dust in his comment on the sunset post. Dust, indeed! I took these pics while the combine was going in our field yesterday. Whew!

(Click either photo to enlarge.)

Yeah, kinda cool that the bird just happened to be flying by at that moment. The full-size photo tells me it's just a pigeon.

Below you can see more of the "layers" of dust. The more distant layer is probably just from a grain semi going by on the road.

Yep, plenty of dust this dry fall. Achoo!! I can't wait till they combine the field just south of our house. Yeah, right. I sure hope the wind is in the north when that day comes! The dust does make for beautiful sunsets, but that's about all it's good for.

Rain, rain... GO AWAY!

Well, it did go away Saturday evening for a bit. The sun was peeking out of the clouds just enough to hit the windmills, and I thought they looked kinda cool with their blades "lit up". Normally they just look gray in the distance.

You can still see areas of light showers over the horizon. It didn't rain on Sunday, but it was of course too muddy to be in the fields.

And it's back to more rain. All_day_long yesterday, with more on the way. The fields are ripe for harvest. It can quit raining anytime now. WARMER would be nice, too... we're 10°-15° below normal!

The sun also gave nice color to the freshly washed grain.

(Click any photo to enlarge.)

(My apologies for making you homesick again, Mark.)

Done!

Before:

And after:

That should keep the cattle fed for awhile. They haven't put the tarp on it yet because it was too WINDY yesterday!

Wish you were here, Mark!

Harvest is on, and our guys are a bit short-handed... they could use your help!

Anyway, here they are making a pile of corn silage. This first pic is just for size perspective.

They started building the pile at our place yesterday. Hey, Mark and Cindy... you've walked this ground! :-)

This tractor (driven by Grandpa's brother) pushes the silage onto a pile and then drives back and forth on it to pack it down.

An impressively huge machine. These pics don't do it justice!

(Click any photo to enlarge.)

Here are a couple of videos of the action. Be sure to turn your volume way up for the full effect. ;-)

Below is Courtney's daddy bringing more to add to the pile.

The pile will of course get much bigger. When they have enough silage on it, they'll cover it with tarps (like the stack of bales in the background) and feed the cattle from it over the winter.

My birthday "boy"

My son, Courtney's daddy.... born on Friday the 13th, 29 years ago! Here he is, watching his crop go into his new bin: