Wheat Harvest Continues On

Well, another week of wheat harvest is in the books.  We are a little almost 90% complete!  YAY!!!  We have more wheat planted than normal, which is making for a long harvest, but the great news is that the yields are excellent!

I have been leaving the house at 8:00 am every morning and getting back from the wheat field around 10:00 pm. My body is starting to act a bit tired.  My parents have been keeping the boys.  They bring them to the farm every night to do their chores and work with their calves and lambs.  My mom asked me the other day if I was appreciative of them taking the boys, and I replied NO!  If the boys were home, the Farmer would let me go home earlier to put them to bed.  LOL

Our high school babysitters all had camps this week, so it was camp grandma again.  The Farmer’s parents took 2 days off to host a group called the Master Farmers and Master Homemakers of Kansas.  When my mother in law agreed to host and coordinate tours for them, she never dreamed we would be in the middle of wheat harvest!  It sounds like they had a good time and we survived without them.

The Farmer has been trying to plant soybeans in the wheat stubble after we cut the wheat.  The rain we got last weekend gave us enough moisture that we are pretty sure the soybeans will come up and grow.  It was hard for him to make much progress with his dad and I disappearing throughout the week. 

This has been one of those weekends when it is hard to be a farmer and a mom.  I know I should be in the combine cutting wheat, but I have a 4-H member that loves geology and this weekend was the Kansas State 4-H Geology Field Trip.  We have went the last 2 years and weren’t about to miss this weekend.  I felt guilty leaving the guys behind to cut wheat, but sometimes I have to be mom, too.  I would have felt worse if I hadn’t went to look at the ground for 2 days with some great kids.

I never took a geology class in college and really don’t know that much, but I have learned so much being the driver.  Geology is one of those projects that not a lot of kids take.  In fact, I had the only 4-H member in the county in the geology for 2 years.  Last year he told me that it was no fun to win Grand Champion, because there was no one to compete against or to learn with.  Wow!  He doesn’t care if he wins and gets a trophy!  I was amazed.  This year I volunteered to be the county 4-H geology leader.  We have 15-20 in the project this year and we traveled with 3 of his friends and 2 of their moms to look for rocks, fossils and minerals. 

We live in an area that is mainly limestone and shale…pretty boring geology wise unless you want to find fossils.  I am amazed every year, by the different minerals and rocks we can find in our own state.  We found some really neat rocks to polish and a shark’s tooth!

One of my farm mom friends and I were talking this week.  Her daughter had made some amazing decorated cupcakes for the county fair.  I commented that they looked great and hoped they froze and thawed out well.  She responded that she didn’t want to go through the process again.  I thought she meant that it was not a fun process, but no it had taken all day to make them due to her farmer huband’s needs interrupting the day.  She had been to the field 3 times, the John Deere dealer once and was headed out the door to move the irrigator so he could plant under it.  We laughed that we would be totally bored if we had a 9 to 5 job.  We also wonder what all you mom’s whose kids aren’t in 4-H do with your time over the summer.  Have a great week everyone!  Sorry there aren’t any pictures, but I am way behind on my work from being gone and we must go move the combine and go to swimming lessons.  I am also hoping the new babysitter that comes today, works out well!!!