Harvest Time

This time every year those of us in a farming community find ourselves in the middle of harvest season. The fields have now turned from lush green to shiny golden wheat just waiting to be harvested. The men go out early in the morning, and don't return back home until after nightfall. This is the time of year where they work the longest, hardest days out of any other day of the year. Why is it so important? This is when they make their money. Everything else they do during the year that costs money, is supported by harvesting and selling the wheat.

Our farm we plant 4,000 acres of wheat. Just to put that into perspective, that's 334 football fields! Before I lived on a farm I took breads, pasta, cereal, etc. for granted and never really put a second though to it when I bought my bread at the grocery store. Living on a farm, I know how hard these farmers work to harvest their wheat so people around the world can eat. I thought I would provide a little insight on the process of how it goes from the field to your table.

So how do they harvest? A machine called a combine: Exhibit A



This is the combine that Patrick and I own. This is the most expensive piece of farm equipment , and it's only used 3 weeks out of the year.

This is your starting point:



The grain goes up into the header, which is the big piece on the front. There's a little scissor-like device on the inside part of the header that cuts the wheat off. It is then fed up to the inside of the combine, where the stalk and head and separated. The stalk gets shot out the back of the combine, where it is eventually baled. We use it for the cows in the wintertime for them to bed down in when it's -20 degrees.

The combine can only travel anywhere from 1 mile per hour up to about 6 miles per hour, depending on the quality of your machinery, and how thick the wheat is.



The head travels up into a big drum where it is aggressive enough to shell the wheat.
(The circles represent where the wheat gets shelled)



The outside of the wheat kernel is called "chaff" and it gets EVERYWHERE. It's the dust coming out of the combine, and by the end of the day the guys are usually covered from head to toe. The wheat kernel goes into the holding tank of the combine. I'm sure this has a name, but I'll just call it the holding tank. Once the holding tank is full they drive the combine over to the grain truck in the field and unload.



The combine keeps going, and the grain truck drives to a grain bin and unloads the grain onto an auger.



It's stored here until a semi-truck driver takes it to the grain elevator. This is where a bunch of wheat from lots of farms is stored until a train comes. From here it goes on a train to who knows where.



Eventually it ends up looking like this:



And ta-da! Field to table! Just make sure to appreciate the farmers who do this hard work the next time you buy your bread from a grocery store. They literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to make $30,000 a year...and to grow wheat. And remember-SUPPORT AGRICULTURE EDUCATION-without this, there will be no farmers in the future and you'll be eating some sort of concoction made in a lab that most likely will give you cancer or something :)