Megan Klinnert – Klinnert Harvesting
So…..it’s been a while. Like a long while! I think my last update was back in August when we were picking up barley in the San Luis Valley in Colorado. Yikes! So, I’ll give you all a quick re-cap on the rest of the year and then what we have going on now.
We were in the Valley for about two weeks. It’s so gorgeous there and the weather is always great so it seems more like a vacation than a job.
Once we finished there, we moved everything back to southwest Kansas and then headed home. It has worked out the past few years that we have a little bit of downtime between barley and the start of fall harvest that we are able to come home and help get some wheat in the ground.
The same was true for this year and we started sowing wheat on September 13th. We had about a 6-day window that we were able to get a majority of everything planted before the rain set it. I think we ended up getting over 5” in the next couple of weeks. Obviously, this delayed some farmers for quite some time. We were some of the lucky ones who had a good amount planted which, in turn, has given us some great wheat pasture for our calves to graze on this winter.
Then fall harvest started. So, if you had kept up with us during wheat harvest you would know that 2018 was not a good year for wheat. Literally every single stop we went to this year from Okarche, Oklahoma to Flagler, Colorado had hail damage. We cut only half the acres that we usually cut.
Well, fall harvest wasn’t much better. We dealt with rain which, in turn, meant mud and lots of it and milo that was slow to ripen. Randall wasn’t home for Thanksgiving this year, which has never happened in the seven years that we have been together. We finally finished the first week of December.
So, what are we up to now? Cattle. We have some home-raised calves along with some “store bought” calves out on wheat pasture. Starting in February our momma cows will start calving for the 2019 season. We haven’t started messing with combines again yet but I told Randall he needs to have them ready before April this year. We will see if that happens. We are soaking up time with family and friends because winters seem to go faster each year and before you know it, we will be on the road again.
While 2018 was pretty tough with less acres, more repair bills than ever and a long drawn-out fall harvest, which in turn affects your bottom line, we still have a heck of a lot to be thankful for!
We found out that we will be welcoming another baby girl in April (hence why I haven’t been in the typing mood). We will be celebrating 15 years since Randall bought his first combine at the age of 19 and started doing custom harvesting. We are very fortunate that we get to experience this crazy harvest life together as a family.
I hope all of you had a great holiday season and that your 2019 looks as good as ours.
Megan grew up on a dairy in Okarche so the thought of traveling to more states in their first couple of years of life than she did in her childhood makes her chuckle.
Megan’s roles on her crew include mom first, cook, maid, parts chaser, Secretary and equipment mover. All of this while also tending to things at their stationary home and working part time for a local construction company.
