Kansas Wheat Harvest

Well, I am husband-less for the next week.  Josh is in a far, far away country for work.  He has promised me that he will write a very exciting blog about his travels for you once he returns.  I told him to take lots of photos...the food, the landscapes, the people...everything.  For now, you're still stuck with me.  We've been pretty low-key since my parents visited and without any adventures to write about I've been sitting here, pondering what to write.  Luckily, I came up with an idea.

Every year, at some point between the 2nd and 3rd week of June, wheat harvest in central Kansas kicks off.  You know it's about time to start cutting once the "custom cutting crews" start making their way north from finishing harvests in Texas and Oklahoma.  I love wheat.  Even though its dust tends to make my eyes itch to the point of swelling shut and causing sudden and uncontrollable coughing and sneezing fits.  I love the rustling sound it makes in the breeze and I love the exciting highs and lows of helping with harvest.  Some of my official harvest duties have included:
                                           professional window washing

                                          and expertly driving grain trucks.

Some years harvest goes smoothly and others...it doesn't.  Grain trucks suddenly lose brake power and you fly speeding down a narrow dirt road, across a highway, with a full 18 ton load of grain and come to a stop a quarter mile down the road.  I bawled hysterically after that incident.  My biggest embarrassing harvest oops was during a trip to town to unload a grain truck and on the uphill drive into the west grain elevator, I accidentally killed the engine and rolled backwards down the hill and crashed the back end of the truck into a metal support beam.  Live and learn.  But it's not just the help that gets into sticky situations.  The boss man himself sometimes goofs up.  On rare occasion he may accidentally drive the combine over a ravine and into a giant mud sink hole.  

I hate not being able to be home to help with harvest, but at the same time it's kinda nice to not be a part of the chaos.  Farmers work incredibly hard during harvest, from dawn till dusk.  Please be mindful if you see combines, machinery or grain semis on the road.  And give them a nice wave when you pass them.  Country folk love waving.