Wednesday, September 17, 2025

We switched over from harvesting corn on Monday to harvesting soybeans on Tuesday.  That made yesterday like another ‘first day’ of harvest.  We had a pretty good day, and the work flowed fairly smoothly.  Our productivity was limited by the fact that we had to move the combines and headers 3 times.    But those moves went along well, too.  The soybeans are yielding well, not a record, but good.  Moisture levels have been acceptable too; maybe a little too dry, but dry beans cut better and sell better than wet ones (over 13% moisture).

Following Brandon through the field. It is a great help having two combines that can use the same guidance line!

We will continue with soybeans today, and for the next few days.  We hope that more and more of them will be ready as we move ahead.   We will need to move only once today.  Moving is more cumbersome in soybeans because the headers have to be removed from the combines and loaded on a special transport cart.  In corn, we simply hit the ‘fold’ button, and the header narrows down to transport width.  Even though it takes another person or two to move us when cutting soybeans, we get that done as quickly as we can.

The headers on their carts, ready to move…

We have Larry back with us this fall, driving trucks for now, and after the 25th, he will spend some time planting our wheat crop.  We also have Brandon’s dad Bob as a temporary harvest helper.  He takes a leave from his normal job to help us here.  Plus, we have Brandon D who mostly runs the grain cart (superbly) and runs a truck delivering grain on the mornings of soybean harvest.

Brandon is headed out this morning with the fuel wagon to fill the combines.

The dry days are good for harvesting, but an inch of rain would be beneficial to the DCB.   Maybe this weekend?  Even so, we move on day by day through #harvest25.  It has been a good start, but there are lots of rows to run down yet!