Kylee DeBock / DeBock Harvesting
Well, that went fast!
We have already been on the harvest trail for a whole month. We started in Alva, as we have for the past three years. When Dillon started going to help our North Dakota farmers plant, we just couldn’t fit Texas in the schedule anymore. He goes to North Dakota mid-April and usually returns around Memorial Day Weekend.
However this year, North Dakota was under three feet of snow in mid-April. So Dillon delayed his trip until May 5th. He and our hired hand, Dalton, headed to North Dakota only to get there and be met with rain. With the melting snow and over five inches of rain, they ended up leaving North Dakota ten days later without planting one single seed. The fields were literally under water.
We had left some equipment up North over the winter, so they drove it home to get it ready for harvest. Dillon knew he would need to go back to help plant when the conditions got better. Because he knew he would be gone when harvest started, we moved all the equipment to Alva nearly a month early. We continued to work around the farm with cattle stuff and last minute harvest preparations before Dillon left again on May 21st.
We were out of the house and into the campers at Alva on May 29th only to be met with rain. Because the next day was Memorial Day, we decided to go have a fun day fishing. Everyone had a grand time and enjoyed the sunshine! There were several more rain days before we finally got cutting late afternoon on June 3rd. We started about 3:00 and cut until midnight. We knew there was another storm coming, so we wanted to get as much done as possible. We didn’t get started the next day until 4:00 and we cut till around 9:30, only to get rained on again!
Sure wish all of this rain would have come in March!
Dillon was flying in that night around 11:00 pm so after getting combines cleaned up, I headed to Oklahoma City to pick him up. We only got a few fields done in his absence but man I was sure glad he came home! Being the “straw boss” is SO stressful and I was happy to give his title back to him! It rained pretty hard that night, so a few more days off. We got back in the field on June 9th and we have been cutting pretty hot and heavy ever since.
We finished Alva and headed to the Mooreland and Mutual area (which is our home base), so it is really nice to be able to cut around home for our neighbors. Unfortunately this year, due to the lack of rain, there were a lot less acres to be cut. Many farmers baled their wheat as it just wasn’t going to make enough to pay the cutting bill. So with less acres, we finished quite quickly and we left for Kansas on June 20th.
The day we moved to Kansas, Riggin had a baseball game. We left him home with his Mimi so she could take him to play one last game. His team won both games and ended the season as league Champions with an undefeated Season!
Our Kansas job was hit by hail a few weeks before it was ready to be harvested so, it too, did not make very much and we got it done quicker than usual. As of right now, we are finished with what we have in Kansas and will be looking for work to fill the gap until our stuff in Nebraska is ready!
Sometimes, a little time off is good to let everyone recharge and rest, as well as, having time to do maintenance on equipment.
Happy harvesting to everyone out there!
God Bless,
Kylee DeBock
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23
