The Harvest Life

This is the third year in a row that I've worked harvest with my cousin and uncle, David and Del White. I am a teacher by trade, so sum- mer break is a great time to make a few extra bucks doing harvest jobs. I drive wheat trucks.

Because fewer and fewer people around these parts farm for a living anymore, I thought it a good idea to keep a journal of my days in the field so that the uninitiated might have a better understanding of the ups and downs of harvest life.

Saturday, July 28 Harvest started for me today, though my cousin and uncle have been harvesting for a few days now. Their harvest began Wednesday with a contract to harvest the Washington State Penitentiary's wheat. They fin- ished the penitentiary grounds yesterday evening and moved equipment back the same day. There's only one new mem- ber of our harvest crew this year-Steve Draper. Steve is a 31-year-old father of two from Milton-Freewater, Ore., by way of Pilot Rock, Ore. He and I are driving trucks and this was also his first day. The other members of the crew, besides David and Del, are Cliff Griffin and Colt Afdal. Ours is a two-combine op- eration. David owns and drives a Case IH 2388 combine, while Colt drives Del's older Inter- national Harvester 1470 com- bine. Cliff usually drives truck, while Del drives a big Case IH Quadtrac tractor that pulls the bank-out wagon. A bank-out wagon is a mobile, temporary grain storage bin on wheels. The tractor pulls it alongside the combines to receive their grain loads. When the wagon is full, the driver pulls it to the trucks that are waiting to be loaded at the edge of the field. Today, we are harvesting at "Nordheim's"-a 174-acre field David owns that is situated most- ly on the north side of Dry Creek off Valley Grove Road between the Middle Waitsburg and Lower Waitsburg roads.

Sunday, July 29 Today we started the morning by moving from Nordheim's to the White's home place about 2 miles up the Dry Creek valley.

The home property is about 1,000 acres and sits just north of the Walla Walla Regional Airport on both sides of Smith Road between Middle Waitsburg Road and Sapolil Road. This is where my mom grew up.

After moving the equipment, David decided we should tackle the 40 acres of peas around the houses and the shop.

We finished the forty acres by 4 p.m., returned to the shop and switched back to the wheat concaves. Before evening came, we started making our first passes over the home wheat.

Monday, July 30 It's been consistently in the high 80-degree range so far-a very comfortable temperature for harvest. We started the day with a breakdown on the 2388 on its first pass of the morning. The "wobble box" broke in multiple places. The wobble box drives the sickle blades on the header to cut down the wheat stalks. Un- fortunately, the wobble box on this machine has broken before. It seems to be a weak spot. Cutting was slow and the wheat looked pretty good.

Tuesday, July 31 Today, we finished the 130 acres of wheat on the north side of the road. It looks like we're getting 100 bushels to the acre. Next up is the flats and low rolling hills south of Dry Creek that roll toward the airport. The weather is still mild for this time of year, although I'm still employing truck driver "cooling tactics" whenever I can. I park my truck with the back end facing the sun and the cab in the shade. In some fields with small loading areas, there is no choice about which way you must park. But on a big flat I maneuver my truck like a reverse sunflower, my tail-not my face-following the sun throughout the day.

Wednesday, August 1

My wife Diana and the kids are visiting some friends in Walla Walla today. They stopped by and dropped off my oldest son Zeke, 5, to spend what turned out to be seven hours with me.

Zeke got to ride the tractor and combine, and ride with me around the field and to the eleva- tor. We got absolutely covered in chaff once.

He got to see inside the eleva- tor, and scale house. Best of all, he and I got to talk and spend time together. He was very excit- ed to tell his mom about the great day he had. His grandpa, my dad Ron Groom, was very excited to see him covered in grain dust that evening.

Most of the south wheat is cut. It shouldn't take a long time tomorrow to finish.

Thursday, August 2

Sometimes, your equipment breaks in harvest and you are down for a time. Rarely, does the elevator that you haul to break down, but that's what happened today. Unfortunately, the workers running the elevator overfilled one of the silos, which caused an auger inside the elevator to make a horrifying noise.

They had to shut down for a time to have their boss come out and take a look.

They promised to call us when they were back up. In the meantime, the combines were full and waiting for trucks to dump on. Where would we take our loads? Back to Valley Grove elevator. It was probably about 4 miles farther away, but at least it was downhill.

Fortunately, Sapolil elevator returned to operation shortly. We were able to finish the south side of the home property with plenty of the day left. It also yielded slightly better than 100 bushels to the acre.

We finished the day harvest- ing the only re-crop on White's home property. Recrop is land that you plant the same crop on two years in a row.

Today and yesterday, David had to do some other work leav- ing our operation short one man. Del and Colt drove combines, Cliff the tractor and bank-out, and Steve and I drove three trucks between the two of us. We were on the move almost non-stop. Wednesday, Sapolil elevator recorded 115 truckloads-their high-water mark for the season. Steve and I delivered over 30 of those loads.

Friday, August 3 Scale problems at the elevator. Yesterday, I brought a fully- loaded truck into the elevator. It should have weighed around 17,000 pounds. Instead, the scale said it weighed 8,000. I had had my doubts about the veracity of a couple of earlier weigh-ins, but there was no doubt about this one. I made my complaint to the elevator workers-three college age kids, all new this year. We all agreed it was a full load and it should have weighed higher. The workers called their boss. The elevator now has a new digital weight gauge and printer. The weather is finally getting warmer. Predictions are for 100 by Sunday. Ugh!

Saturday, August 4 It's my 2-year-old's birthday! And I'm not there to see him! Urrgh. It is definitely more than 90-degrees today. I wore a dark blue t-shirt. It soaked up the sun's heat terribly. I was pouring off sweat by mid-morning. We quickly finished the re- crop and moved to the back 90 acres. A lot of the wheat back here is downed-laying flat against the ground. To pick up this wheat the combines must proceed slowly with their head- ers nearly on the ground. The drivers must be careful not to dig the header into the ground and break things. David's wife Amie brings a cooler of refreshments for the crew to enjoy after work each night. We dig into the cooler once we finish fueling, greasing, and blowing the chaff off the combines. As we drink, we shoot the bull, the moon comes up and dusk falls. I usually try to get out of these jabber sessions as soon as possible, so I can get home to the wife and kids.

Sunday, August 5

Today, we were the only ones hauling to Sapolil elevator for much of the day. On Cliff's first run to the elevator, the girls there did not come out immediately to empty his truck. So Cliff blasted his air horn and woke them up! They were napping in the scale house. You can't blame them though. No one was hauling ex- cept us and we were not hauling the loads in very rapidly.

Both combines broke down (albeit briefly) early this morn- ing.

The accelerator on my truck is acting up, or should I say not acting at all. Four times, I suddenly lost my ability to accelerate while pushing the gas pedal.

The truck would simply idle in gear. Unfortunately, the first time this happened I was climb- ing a hill on the Middle Waits- burg Road. My truck slowed to a stop and began rolling back- wards.

I had to back down the hill until I could find a turn out where I could get the truck off the road. Thankfully, no cars appeared just then.

We finished the back 90 acres by mid-morning and moved across Middle Waitsburg Road to a 70-acre field owned by a recent transplant to the Walla Walla area named Steve Bogin. The field is planted with Dark Northern Spring wheat.

The combines proceeded slowly through it. Spring wheat always yields fewer bushels to the acre than winter wheat. This meant longer waits for a combine to cut a full load.

At about 3:30 p.m., Del asked if I wanted to go home, since the going was so slow. I readily agreed.

My wife was thrilled to have me home at 4:30 p.m. And I was grateful too. She fixed me my first hot dinner in a week-my first dinner of any kind at home in a week. We ate fried chicken and spent an evening together. What a great way to celebrate our 17th anniversary!