hello welcome to Kate's Ag today is the first day back in the field
we had two days off because we got rained out we're questioning whether it's still too wet to
go today our moisture is around 15 percent which is way too high to put in a normal bin you want to
keep your wheat's moisture level around 12 if you're going to put it in a bin that's not an
air bin this is all going in an air bin but as my dad said the straw is just like rope going
through the combine so the combine does something called thrashing which means separating the kernel
from the rest of the wheat and the covering and the chaff and then it puts the kernel in the grain
tank and sends the rest out the back but your combine still has to process all of that so i'm
going 2.4 miles an hour right now and we're just not sure my uncle chris plugged up his combine he
was just radioing it's really having a hard time with this damp wheat so i have a funny story this
morning because my dad got his new columbine the 9870 sts which is basically exactly the same as
this one the only difference is that it has dual wheels on the front so two wheels on each side
rather than just one when i had the 9610 it was really easy to figure out which combine was mine
because it looked different from all of the other ones now all these combines look the same so i
look at the number on the side and i accidentally got in my dad's combine i've started it up ready
to go with all my stuff in it and he comes up and says kate you're in the wrong combine and
i go oh no so now i have to look at the wheels and see which one is mine because i got in the
wrong combine and i didn't even notice which is pretty bad we just started a new field we got
done with our other field right when it started raining so that was super good but we didn't rode
the combines out of the field because it started pouring so this morning we roded the combines to
this field which was just one field over and we opened up some passes on the north side and now
we're on the southeast side of the field opening up this part as well it'll be interesting to see
whether we can keep going or not because the combine seems to be having a lot of problems
thrashing the stamp we you can even tell by the way the wheat is laying in the grain tank
that it's pretty dang now it won't mold in the bins because we are putting it in an air bin
it's just a matter of whether this is good or not for the combine my return auger is pretty high
for how fast i'm going this is a big field so we'll be in it for a little while we do have the
three combines going my dad's running the 98.70 with the duals my uncle chris is running the 9760
and then i'm running the other 90-70 that i've been running all harvests it's always bittersweet
finishing harvest but i'm super tired and we've been harvesting for quite a while so
i'm excited to catch up on some rest but also i'm sad that harvest is over because
it's just that one time of the year that's just an amazing experience and really cool to watch
i love being able to pick up the wheat that you spent the whole year growing
and see the grain kernels in the tank moving into the grain cart and
the whole process of growing your food and how it will eventually end up on someone's table
it's just really incredible our farm is located in montana and it was homesteaded in 1912 by my
great grandfather from denmark what we grow on our farm and what we're actually harvesting today
is winter wheat and it's a very tough kind of crop because we don't get a lot of moisture here at
all and we have a lot of windy and really cold days so you have to be able to grow crops that are
really hardy to the area primarily what we grow is winter wheat which is what we are picking up today
yes a bit sometimes i like to stretch my legs in the combine and pick my leg up
but when i do that it takes the weight off the seat a little bit and my header shuts off so it's
got a weight sensor then i have to idle my machine down in the middle of the swath turn the back on
turn the front on and then rabbit button because i guess the combine thought i left the seat my
grain tank full buzzer just came on okay there's some holes in this field you need to look for
their gravel test bed holes they didn't cover them up so you don't want your head dropping off into
one under your combine if you can see it okay i'll look out for that thank you i think uncle chris is
parked over on that side of the field he's digging his header out oh that's never fun these headers
these headers hold a lot of wheat and you don't even realize it until you have to dig it out which
i've never had to dig a header out i've never plugged up a header but i hope to keep it that way
although i think it may happen eventually i hear my rotor stumbling even going two miles an hour
your tank's looking pretty full dad i only have a quarter window left in my tank so oh my gosh
that's the cutest bird oh my goodness i have to show you oh my gosh look at that how cool
it's a hawk brad are you around here i only have a quarter window left in my tank if not
we need the car guy down here so he's got problems so we just go along
if you don't have any window left just remember you can't turn or zoom around on corners you
i'm headed down a decently steep hill right now so i'm just paying attention to my header height
making sure everything's going well follow the road
i have a full window now so i can't go very much further remember that weeds
heavy and sticky so don't you know open that gate too far how do you lift up the
you're probably gonna have to pull the rotor panels off the sides and dig it
out that way i mean it's it's not where the straw choppers are i mean you go in there but
i don't know i i'll just road over there anyway right now because we'll have to dump in the truck
i've got a full window so i'm not sure how much further i can go don't go any further
so i have to be really careful and smooth on my turns because when you've got a full window
you've got a lot of grain in your tank and you want to make sure that grain doesn't fall out
oh that could have been bad i was speeding kind of down into a [ __ ] and i've got a
full grain tank so i had to slow down there right just sit there if we can get in there
with combine i mean yeah when you're so we'll just stop in your truck where you're at our
car i mean are you smoking all right i'm pulling up to kind of buy uncle chris's combine i think
my dad's going to help him unplug it oh that's never fun when you plug your combine i've watched
my dad plug it and have to get out dig it out put my auger out i'm going to dump in the green
cart so now i am going to i think go and park the combine i have to make sure i look in the
mirror and i'm not turning around and hitting our grain car driver well i guess i'll get to show you
what it looks like when you plug a combine up and plugging it up just means you can't process
everything so it just stops working idle my machine down i'm going to put my parking brake
on just because i'm on a hill and i don't want my combine going for a joy ride without me i just
parked my combine and now i'm getting out to see uncle chris's plugged combine and what's going on
hi dean hi how's it going i'm good thank you how are you i'm alive
nice counts yes well that's wonderful
oh yeah there are five paws that's really cool
this is all of the straw that was in the back of the combine
hi darcy how are you this morning okay yeah definitely well we don't have too
much longer left no it's getting down there now yes yes we can oh yeah it does feel moist
it's crazy how much straw this combine had in it yeah you can't really break it apart
and if we can't break it apart with our hands it makes it really hard for the combine to do that
yep which is why it plugs up yes there's my dad's combine that's my combine this is uncle chris's
oh there's another operation going on in that field over there that i can see you can see their
green cart they've got two three combines running oh my dad's taking his combine to his pickup
shutting my combine off now see dad roding back up here in his combine
bye darcy it looks like my dad and my uncle chris and darcy got the combine unplugged so my dad and
i are going to head back to our rows our green car was having some problems i think a sheer pin broke
so we had to rode up here and dump in the trucks anyway i'm coming up to a coulee right
now and it's right there my dad suggested i back up and line up straight with the row
kind of on the other side of the [ __ ] because it's a little bit big to just continue through
and i can't do it on an angle there was a ton of little tiny mice that just ran different
directions oh my goodness i'm at lunch and it's so easy everybody's place we're almost blowing away
put the chair away oh my gosh a rabbit just ran from my wheat squad oh my goodness i think you
can see it's a little years it was so adorable a rabbit was in my wheat soil it was the cutest
thing yeah bunny rabbit yeah he was in the water hanging out in here he was really adorable
that was the cutest bunny ever my dad just asked me if i have seen any hawk feathers oh little bird
and i haven't but i have seen a lot of hogs so i'm just going to let them know
no i haven't seen any hawk feathers but i've seen tons of hogs they're never in my wheat swamp
all right my dad said that there was a hawk feather in about the fourth row in so i'm
going very slowly and looking for it here he said it was kind of black and white i don't see
it yet i'm never finding hawk feathers ever oh my goodness it's not very big but it still counts so
idle the machine down and take all the necessary precautions to be safe in combine when you want
to get out and go look for hawk feathers ooh this is exciting okay this is my combine in the field
i think i saw it right here it's a very small feather but oh that's awesome on this piece of
wheat here i don't see any more right now but wow that's so cool i have another hawk feather now
i've only found one before so far and my dad found one that he gave to me also and he always
used to stop the combine when i was little and go and grab one so it's become a little bit of a
harvest tradition well that was so much fun i hope you enjoyed my little adventure of going to get
this hawk feather my dad just radiated and said he left me a present at the end of his wheat row so
i'm assuming it's another hog feather and i get to pick up that little part so when we get there i'll
show you and it will be very exciting i saw another bunny in the weak swath oh my goodness
i am so excited he shouldn't be up here in the wheat swash so look out for him
how adorable that little wheat swath right there is the one my dad left me so i think
there's a hawk feather in it and i'm going to go look for it so i have to shut my machine off
and idle it down and i see the hawk feather that is the coolest thing ever this will be my first
true hawks other of the year not just like the fluff oh how cool that's so awesome thank you dad
the hawk feather is so cool it's the first real one you have to pick up that little piece of weed
yes that's what i'm doing now thank you though oh that was so awesome look at all the hops one
two three four five six seven eight i see at least eight right now flying around there's even one in
my wheat swath coming up and we'll see how close i can get before he flies away it was a good plan
here's the [ __ ] i have coming up so my pass is going to be this one and it's probably one of the
steepest in the coulee and then we'll be able to go to that neck but it's always challenging doing
this oh my gosh another rabbit oh that is so cute oh my goodness no way i just saw my third bunny
rabbit of the day there's so many rabbits in this feat same buddy rabbit three times probably it's
definitely windy out you can see the straw that's chopped up coming out of the back of uncle chris's
combine blowing away we just finished this field right here and we're moving to the field across
the street which is not very big actually usually the type of hawk feathers you'll see in the wheat
swath are little white fluffy ones for example like this one because that's what's on their
bellies and it gets stuck on the wheat now this one's really cool because you don't usually find
these this is harder for the hawk to get stuck in the wheat swath all right we're finished
harvesting for today a little bit early because we didn't want to send another semi back to the bins
we are going to have a beautiful sunset i'm just taking my auger out right now and lining up to
our grain cart who is actually dumping in the semi well i'm about to dump the cart so that's
kind of interesting that happens occasionally line up right here got that pretty straight
turn on my unloading auger and then after this we'll park the combines and head out for the day
it's 8 35 we usually stop around 9 to 9 30 so we're stopping and half an hour early than normal
but we also started early today we started at 8 30. i actually have an interesting story the field
we started in this morning was actually swathed with our neighbors field so we hired people to
swap our wheat and then they were swapping it at night and didn't see that there was two different
people's fields and they swapped it all together so every time that we went to get another row
we had to road all the way down and it was just not quite as efficient as it usually would be so
that's kind of a funny story of what happened with that field is it was swathed with our neighbors
and good thing we know the property line and also the wheat is slightly different colored but that's
always really risky when you do that because you never want to pick up your neighbor's crop i'm
just turning in to where my dad is parked now and lining up for the evening i have to put my parking
brake on because i seem to be rolling backwards idle down and we are finished for the night
all right i'm about to turn my combine off there's the grain cart unloading into the semi
there's uncle chris and then there's my dad we are going to have a beautiful sunset tonight here's
what's happening outside of the combine the grain carts just finishing unloading thank you so much
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