HARVEST 2011

Harvest is still in full swing, and the wind has finally stopped blowing, for a day at least. You can actually hear the birds and they are everywhere. So much for wind towers killing them all.

This year is phenomenal for us. With averages of 70 to 80 bushels, it is unreal. The price is just over $7, finally, after 30 years.  Our best field went 88. Our irrigated went 105 bushels to the acre, and that sounds great except this year there was rain everywhere. Unfortunately, it is slow going. No, wait, make that fortunately!

We can only cut at 2.5 miles an hour. A cousin of Kevin’s visited today, and Michael George said he has never seen stubble like this, ever. The trucks couldn’t keep up, and the elevator in Biggs couldn’t either. But a few major shifts – an additional truck for us, and the COOP not hauling their grain at peak hours, made a huge difference.

Everyone is getting tired, though. Long days and short nights are tough. There are always arguments when people don’t show up to grease or service the equipment, and tempers run high. Not to mention losing two transmissions. The lesson to be learned here? Don’t shift on a hill, especially with a full load. Most farmers know that; some don’t. We have lost six transmissions in 12 years, and that is excessive. And expensive, at $12,000 a whack. Ahh, the joys of family farming.

Truthfully, it is all a learning experience.  Concentrating on the best parts of this life, instead of the hardships and headaches, is tough. Just being here is an exercise in learning to love, learning to forgive, and learning to let go.

HOME SWEET HOME!

What do you do you do all day in the middle of nowhere???     Write! Create!

I swear I did not Photoshop this!!

September 25, 2010: At least the moon is taking the ‘hits’ for us. Look at the dent on the right side!

I live on a wheat ranch in eastern Oregon. The nearest grocery store is forty miles away in The Dalles.

I grew up in Dover, Delaware; Osceola, Indiana; and Gainesville, Florida.                      Go Gators!

Living so far away from cities and neighborhoods and people was a huge transition for me, but now I love it.

Springtime: soft white winter wheat

Mid June the wheat is almost all golden.

The nights here are so dark. And so full of stars! When I sit in my Jacuzzi at night, the view is incredible. You can hear the coyotes howling and the owls hooting. Or you can hear perfect silence.

Walking down the dirt road by my house is always peaceful. The stalks rustle and move in the wind, and when the wheat starts to turn and ripen it smells like you are in a bakery. Deer, antelope and jack rabbits are frequent companions, as well as pheasants and occasional elk.

The sunrises and sunsets are awesome.

We grow soft, white winter wheat. Most of it gets shipped to the Pacific Rim for Asian dumplings. Our wheat isn’t stretchy – that is, it doesn’t have enough “tensile strength” for noodles. I think some of it is used for cake flour, too, but Asia is our largest market. Lately we have been planting wheat with more protein content, so that its use is more versatile.

My father-in-law used to travel extensively for the U.S. Wheat League. He has friends all over the world that I would call while overseas. I remember the lunch his friend from Korea took me out for – wonderful food I would never have tried without him.

We plant in the fall, around mid September if there is enough moisture.

We have three large tractors to plant 4500 acres a year, 9000 total.

We harvest in July and August, usually starting right after our four wheeling trip to the beach for the 4th of July.

I love harvest, even with the long days and heat.

My cousin Karen getting a ride.

Friends come out to ride combines and the hustle and bustle of the time is exciting.

The combine dumps into the bankout wagon, and the bankout wagon dumps into the trucks.

Putting the trucks away after harvest.

My only real job during harvest is to cook dinner and make goodies, so I find the days long and enjoyable. Its fun to go ride the combines, or sit in the truck on the way down to the elevator at the river.

Rufus, Oregon grain elevator. It is called an elevator because the wheat is offloaded from trucks, then taken up to the top and dumped.

Biggs Junction, Oregon grain elevator

Antelope at sunrise

I love to watch antelope, but farmers hate them. They are the ‘goats’ of the plains, and will eat anything, especially weeds. This sounds like a good problem, until they carry the seeds to clean fields and defecate.

The only “bad” thing about living here is the wind. Sometimes it blows for days. I can’t imagine being in a sod house, or a pioneer cabin where you could hear it day and night. Perhaps that’s why people suffered from “prairie madness”! At least inside my house it’s fairly quiet – even when the wind is howling at 50 mph.

The bad has become good. We now have wind towers, and they will fund our retirement for years to come.

Flying jets uses quite a bit of fuel; now I can “give back” something in the form of alternative energy.

I’ve found that you have to be careful what you wish for. For years I wanted to “farm the wind.” Now we are. So much for solitude. The holes were dug in May 2007. My front yard used to be wheat: then it became a freeway. Huge semi trucks thundered by at fifty miles an hour. The worst part of the project, for me, was the huge, ugly transmission lines that were built to take the power out. I didn’t think about that part.

Of course, three years later it was all done. Huge white blades slice the sky around my house and now I love to watch them turn. I love how they look – huge propellers that remind me of flying. Its like waking up on a quiet airport. I heard you could hear them, and sometimes when I step outside I can hear the rhythmic swoosh. But it’s not loud, at least not louder than the wind is! It amazes me how many people hate how they look or sound. Compared to coal plants, wind towers are so clean. I know the wind doesn’t blow all the time, but I am amazed by how much it does. I never noticed. What seemed like a breeze is actually enough to power the turbines. They turn at 7 mph and produce power at 9 mph. Naysayers claim that they only produce power 33% of the time, but hey, that’s 33% more than nothing!

If you want to see more about our wind project, you can go to www.roadtobiglow.com Kevin and Colt are even on the video – if you click on the silo it goes to “Old MacDonald had a Farm” except its old McCullough’s…. Don’t even try to power up the Biglow site unless you have fast high-speed internet. It takes an incredible amount of juice, or it “streams” like crazy!!!

The old...

The new!

Paradise.