Harvest Patience

On the way home from Walla Walla recently we found ourselves stuck behind a combine on Highway 12. My first instinct was to finda quick way around the slow-moving vehicle so we wouldn't have to travel the rest of the way to Waitsburg at 30 miles per hour. I eased up right behind it, looking for an opportunity to pass it in the oncoming lane. Then I relaxed somewhat, remembering this is harvest time, and I backed off to make sure I didn't make the combine driver feel pres­sured. It's easy to forget that farmers have little choice in using roads to move their equipment around, and this time of year we should ex­pect to see a lot of glacially paced machines. Our advice is to have a little patience. Farmers and growers in our area are already under enough pres­sure, though their busiest season brings blessings as well as challenges.

Harvest is a special time for our agricultural families. It's a time when sons and daughters come home from college or out-of-town jobs to help bring in the crop. It's a time of long work days - from sunrise to sunset - and of anxiety about commodity prices. It's a time that can make or break a fam­ily business. As one longtime Waitsburg farmer said: "We can't wait until it (harvest) gets here, and we can't wait 'til it's over." The 2010 harvest has had its good and bad. On the good side, it's been a very cool and wet year, generating an abundant crop. A Russian drought and wheat export ban have pushed wheat prices up to nearly $8 per bushel, a rare event during harvest time.

They were looking at bare­ly $4 not so long ago, a price that wouldn't cover produc­tion costs for many farmers.

On the bad side, grow­ers have had to protect their crops against rust and cover the unexpected expense of spraying. Some unseason­able rain in July and early August has slowed cutting in certain areas. In general, har­vest is late this year, raising questions about the available workforce as many farm­hands resume football prac­tice in August and school in September.

It's a ner­vous time for farm families. Cutting has to occur just at the right time - after the moisture levels in the plants drop low enough and before it sprouts or, worse, goes to seed. As temperatures rise and the hills dry out, there's a con­stant danger of fire. Lighting struck several fields about two weeks ago, though subsequent rain quickly put them out. Not so more recently, when 120 firefighters were called out to suppress a 23,000-acre blaze near Eureka and save a hand­ful of barns, grain silos and residences. Two other fires in the burned in the Touchet Valley over the weekend. A ciga­rette butt tossed out a win­dow is the likely culprit for a grass fire along the Snake River outside of Starbuck that consumed close to 3,000 acres; and a combine fire had Dayton volunteers busy Friday night on top of King Grade about 10 miles north of Dayton.

Overall, Touchet Valley growers likely will come out ahead this year, but that doesn't make the season with all its challenges less stressful. At a time when wheat farmers in this part of our state help supply the world with food and help boost our local economy, it's worth cutting them some slack when you're looking at the rear of a grain truck on Main Street or an oversized combine escorted down Highway 12.