Kylee DeBock – DeBock Harvesting
I hope everyone is doing well and your wheat fields survived all these passing storms!
In Northwest Oklahoma, we have had more rain in the past week than we have had in the previous eight months! It is most certainly a Godsend and there is no complaining from me but, man, these rains came with fierce winds! One passing storm blew the roof off of the elementary school in Mooreland which left them with major water damage. The latest storm, on Sunday night (24th), was one for the record books at our house.
When we completed our Oklahoma jobs, we didn’t have anything lined up in Kansas so we just took all our equipment home and did some maintenance on equipment and finished up some shop projects. But I had already moved out of the house and I was NOT going to take anything back in. So we were home, but staying in the camper. It rained most of the night on Saturday. During church on Sunday, it was a welcome sound all through the service.
The rains subsided about noon and a few hours later we decided to go ahead and load equipment and proceed with our plan of leaving Monday morning! While the boys were loading equipment, I washed all the vehicles that would be left behind for the summer and reloaded the parts trailer. We were done around 10:00 pm and settled in for the night, only to be awakened at around midnight with severe winds!! We’ve been going on Harvest for 15 years now and although there have been some storms that made the camper rock, I have NEVER been worried about it turning over! This storm was different. My husband usually sleeps through things like this but when he got up, got dressed and said, “Get the kids”, I went into full momma bear mode! Dillon went to the back room, woke up the kids and told me to put the slides in. We moved the kids into the living room (when slides are in there is no access to the back room), sat on the couch and waited it out. Riggin, our six-year-old, was very scared and kept asking if we were going to turn over! I assured him it was okay, even though I was scared for the same reason!
I am certain had we just had our camper jacks down, we would have blown over! But, luckily, we had already hooked up the camper to the pickup and I am a firm believer that is what kept us grounded! Once the storm passed, we all went back to sleep. Well…everyone else did; I tossed and turned!
The next morning we had uprooted trees, limbs all over the yard, and debris everywhere. We had planned on leaving at 6:30 but it was closer to 8:00 when we pulled out of the driveway after doing some cleanup. We knew we couldn’t go out the normal way to the north because the road was already flooded on Sunday when we came home from church, and it poured all night! So we went south, only to find power poles laying in the middle of the road!
Well, as you all know, our wide loads don’t back up so forward was the only option. Dillon made it past the first pole but on the second, he got off the road a little too far. We have received five inches of rain in the last week so I am sure y’all can guess what happens next…correct…he gets stuck. We unloaded the combine and hoped that the truck could drive itself out of the ditch. Nope, it was really stuck! The boys decide to go move the electric poles. I KNOW, I KNOW!! Not the smartest decision but the poles did move with ease and it ended up clearing them almost completely off the road. (Maybe we should have done that first and we wouldn’t have gotten stuck) That gave us enough room to get the Service Truck around so we could pull out the Pete. After an hour, and making it only one mile from the house, we were loaded and back on the road! It was quite an interesting start to our day.
We decided to park in Leoti, Kansas and after unloading, Dillon went back for the second load. When he got home, we were still without power. There were still lots of poles down from the intensity of the wind! I checked in with my neighbors and power was restored on Tuesday afternoon.
We are ready to find a job and get back to work. We are all a bit stressed from the time off, but this time has allowed us to slow the harvest pace down and enjoy each other! We’ve caught up with friends at the park, had a cookout at the campgrounds, met some new harvesters, enjoyed playing football and watching movies with our kids. These are moments we can never get back so why not make the best of it and make memories with our kids!
God will take care of us…as He always does. Maybe we will get a job soon. Maybe we won’t get that extra job till July or August. For fifteen years, God has provided enough to get us through to the next season and I know this year won’t be any different! If your crew is struggling, know that you aren’t alone. Lots of crews are down in acres and that’s a hard pill to swallow some days. Put your faith in God and He will lead you in the right direction!
Happy Harvesting to everyone!
God Bless,
Kylee DeBock
“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.”
James 1:2-5 NLT
