hello welcome to Kate's Ag today is another day of harvest on our Montana family farm
we will be harvesting winter wheat and swaths today
we're just getting all the combines ready to go this morning it kind of looks like
it's going to rain so we may have to cut our days short i'm not really sure
it's really bad when it rains and the weed is swapped because it'll take longer to dry out
make sure to like this video and subscribe to see more videos to learn how your food
gets to your table what are you doing right now dad cleaning out the rock trap
if there's any bad things in here was there any bad things in the rock trap that doesn't mean
they weren't in there oh look did the cross come out that's what i'm wondering that's a large rock
that would make some noise yeah there you go well i hope that's what it is it didn't sound that good
i just started my combine up and i blew the horn just because it's really important that
no one is behind the combine or in any danger when you're starting this big equipment up
we are in a field that we finished last night and we're just going to road the combine down
the highway a little bit and then start our next field it's really close like two fields away
it looks like my dad's about to get in his combine i think i'll just lift my header up
probably shift into third to row down there just waiting for my dad he just shifted into third
and we should be taking off yep i'm good to go i'm gonna rev it up
my dad just revved his up too so that's pressing the rabbit button and we're headed on the road now
these combines are very steery when you get on the road and when you're in third gear going
fast so you have to be really careful with them in any movement you can't constantly steer the
steering wheel it's hard to keep them on the road you have to really pay attention
we have about a week left of harvest see what i mean it is a little bit hard especially at first
when you're coming out of your turn oh we've got a semi truck coming i got a copy i see that
truck okay you have to pick a place you can slow down and get over in between the approach or uh
reflectors you know what i mean yes i know what you mean right you bring
we've got a white truck behind us too i don't know
i think that's not ours oh both those trucks turned off so that ended up
working out we got a white truck that just passed dad you've got a white truck behind you
i'm going 21.6 miles now or seven between 21.6 and 21.7 as my max speed we're eroding to this
other side of the field to start these roads can't go 20 miles an hour in the field though
that doesn't go over well the field has a lot more bumps oh i see what we're doing
we're opening this field up for the truck so we're going to open up just
half a pass i gotta get out of third gear that's really important to remember
rabbit speed everything's easier on equipment if you put it in at a lower idle turn the back of
the machine on the internal parts that separate the wheat from the wheat covering and chaff and
everything now i've turned my header on you let the auger start going and end it to kind of catch
up and then you rev it up with the rabbit button set the header down i'm just in the middle of a
wheat swath right now we open up the fields so that the trucks can park here in the green cart
without the green car having to drive on the swaps this is the field we call the three bins
because it has three bins my uncle chris is just asking my dad if we're opening up a place for a
truck open about four or five passes right by the bins and then i'm we're gonna take off well jim
said he'd driven along trucks before so we'll put him in maybe darcy's or him and the other one and
he said that ben's probably somewhere about half full now maybe we had to just move to the
big ben and so we don't have to mess with that i don't know the then isn't the problem it's uh
getting it back and forth well we'll set up that truck and then we'll figure out well the dean's
leaving after he sets up the truck okay and then we'll fill up whatever truck you know jen said
he can drive the big one so we'll have austin make it first load with him and show him the routine on
that and then um and we'll just do the best we can is all we can do well i know you can drive
well it's like me i can drive those trucks forward but i can't back him up
oh my gosh that is funny so dean our truck driver one of our employees he isn't feeling well
we definitely want him to get better so he has to leave and now we have no truck drivers because
darcy is also at the doctor's because his foot pulling a little tiny bit of this hand and you
pull a little bit of yours to kate then we can just get in and out of this corner you know
yes i know what you mean because his foot was hurting and so he's at the doctor today so we
have no truck drivers no semi-truck so my dad might have to not drive combine and drive truck
it'll just depend and then we'll have to put some people who are not as familiar with driving truck
on truck i'm turning around to make my next pass it's always hard at the edge of the field because
there's no room to turn around we'll just go back and pull a couple more rows just like we did
sounds good there dean goes by in the semi truck we're just pulling a little
bit of this one to give us some turnaround room just hang out right there uh dean and
i'll get you a couple more rows full then you guys pull up a little bit to the west
you rarely want to back up in the combine in the field because you could always hit something and
you want to back up the least amount possible but you also don't want to drive over the wheat swath
so it's kind of a catch 22 in that respect i'm just following the curve around these three green
bins i've got a straw row on one side and a wheat swath on the other we're just trying to open this
area up for the trucks as i was saying got the grain cart parked over there another tandem just
made it over here i had to drive over the wheat swath there so that wasn't good but i took the
wrong row up now turn this way and i'm facing north and this row is headed east so i have to
oops do a little bit of backing up to get to it you should have drove on the other side of mark
yes that would have been a better idea i just realized that i think that's probably
enough though i'm gonna pull two more and that way they can turn around not tight or
he'll dump you and then you stay with me even if the he splits this cool you just come around the
cooling get in the second row on the other side with me okay i'll do that thank you
well he did switch [ __ ] right i'm just gonna pull a path
around this whole thing and then we got a way to get around
okay i'm gonna drive to stand up right after you get gay go dump and then jesus down and you
know and then you'll have to come back and dump again you know that's the john deere mechanic
i doubt it yeah it'd probably even be delivered yet from them little whirlwinds
pulled a lot of weed out of these swaths didn't it especially that one on the corner there was
a deer pass yes they really did the wind comes in and blows the wheat out of its swath
over to the side so sometimes it makes it hard to get the whole swath
do you want me to just wait here then yeah just wait i'll just go here and then i'll pull that
other one on the other side then we'll cross over and do the outside round and then we'll do
this piece that we're on here now sounds good you have to go up above this little end thing
right here you know the cooling in you see what i mean i think i know what you're i'm not sure
could you explain that again pass in front of you
drive around this swap till it turns the corner and then grab the next one going the right way
next to me oh yeah i know what you mean turn the back on turn the front rev it
up start the wheat swap no come on where i am right now that's where your path starts
dad's right over there picking up these swaths so we don't have to cross and when we go up this hill
we're making a pass around the whole field before we start doing
half of the field and not the other half
my dad just had to pull out of the wheat swap to dump because as you can see there's no room
that's the very end pass right there i won't have to do that though and look at how long
that auger is on that combine with duals it's incredible oh there's a baby bird in the meat
swath and i don't want to hit it he's so cute right there oh he finally flew away oh my dad
was just on the radio and he said quite the little cooly tour and it really is the cooley
went from here and it was much steeper goes all the way around we're driving by a crew that has
right there right right grandpa and i are at lunch right now we're at lunch
line something you like
right here and then up there we have a case combine
and i think they have two or three of them in the field
they're almost done with this field we have just begun
i just waved of course another baby bird just ran out of the wheat swath
oh my gosh a baby pheasant is in the wheat swath this is so exciting oh my goodness oh my gosh
i am so excited oh there he is running on this side oh my gosh that is so cute oh there he goes
he just flew away right now my dad just finished dumping in the tandem truck because our green cart
pin missing out of the auger so you filled up about the same though we can dump in the grain
cart but they the grain cart can't dump into the truck like my dad said it's hard to tell distance
with the auger on these you really have to be precise so when they get the this happened last
year to the green card also looks like i lined it up okay i could have been a little further in
you load tandem trucks back to front and you load semi trucks front to back it's basically where the
axles are and where the truck can hold the most weight and that tandem truck is full and ready
to go the tandem's full i'm harvesting right now and as you can see these skies look so dark and
blue just like it's going to rain the forecast was that it was going to rain tonight and thunderstorm
but at first it didn't look like it was going to we had kind of it looked like it was going to rain
this morning and it didn't and then we had blue skies and now it look really looks like it's going
to rain so it's not a matter of if it's really a matter of wind at this point so we're going
to try and get this little area cleaned up and then that was my green tank full buzzer we're
trying to get this little area picked up and maybe the coulee and then that's probably the
most we could do for today and we might be rained out so we can't harvest tomorrow either look at
those skies it is definitely going to rain and all the wind that's picking up behind my dad's
combine you can really see it starting to blow that would be a typical montana day i just put
my auger out i need to dump in the grain cart brad is coming back over just saw lightning
lightning is the exact reason we park our combines in summer follow because they would
catch on fire and burn up if they were in this field here the green car driver comes
so i hit button one my dad programmed it to lift my header button one will lift it button two will
drop it on the ground like that and button one lifts it so when i come to the end of a
row instead of pressing this top button to lift my header all i have to do is press button one
and then when i line up with a row as i'm going to do right now to show you
all i have to do is press button too drop the header on the ground and move forward it'll stay
at this position throughout the whole row and i usually don't have to adjust it that much we have
a couple more rows here as you can see and this is the piece my dad is trying to finish before we get
all the rain what happens is even if it doesn't rain tomorrow these wheat swathes will be too damp
and we can't put damp wheat in the bins because it will rot going about 2.9 miles an hour right now
and just trying to get this last part cleaned up we've got about two more big long rows and
then the rest of these are small i still have all of this part of the field too but we'll have this
section of it completed get all this dust oh my goodness press button one lift the header
drive away from the wheat swath to not hit it my swath ended back there so i'm coming up here to
get these this is not the conditions you want for harvest this is what you want to fill the heads
out you want rain it seems as if you never get rain when you need it yeah i do do you want us
to go ahead and unload this then yeah go ahead and load it won't take you very long i just saw
more lightning over there this is what harvesting in a pre-thunderstorm is like in montana my dad
just said on the radio it's starting to rain right now and that's kind of what i thought it
looks like it's raining a bit is there any more down there dad i finished my last one up here
so it looks like i'm going to roll down there and help my dad get the last couple rows
and they're just little tiny rows too i think this row is going the right direction for me
and lucky me it is and then dad's on that one there's another little tiny one and two more
little bit bigger tiny one
you can see the rain on the windows and they're big raindrops too and we don't get big raindrops
in montana there's my dad over there he's really full i'm probably really full too
we'll get through these last passes without having to dump my grain tank buzzer hasn't even gone off
yet i'm thinking my dad's maybe has gone off once this week gets wet it's really hard for
it to go through the machine and break it apart break the chaff and the covering and the covering
of the kernel off when it went and we don't even want it wet i'm gonna put my windshield wipers on
did not help at all it just made it worse i'm going to take actually my dad might be on that
ronax so i think we might be done with rose when i get this one finished we've still got the kcih
combines over there harvesting so everyone's still out in the field and our car driver radioed and
said the temperature dropped really quick and it did jim do you have a coffee that's my uncle chris
yes i do uh just keep that truck back there carpet and just stay there we're probably
gonna go over the house for summer okay i can barely see out of my window right now
i think those combines are roading back too and they're going to be done harvesting as well right
at the same time we are here's the tandem that we're going to dump in right away it was driven
all the way out here just so that we could dump in it i'm going to let my header and inside of
the combine clean out a little bit which is why i leave these on and after they're clean like about
now i'll shut the inside off then the header part are you empty brad yes well this is what extreme
weather harvesting looks like you get a good look into the crazy variables that happen in farming
more big raindrops next to my kate's egg tote bag that i have right here uncle chris helped me
line the combine up to the tandem truck because it was taking me a while because i couldn't see out
the window so thank you uncle chris uncle chris is rolling the tarp over the truck and he said he
can't get it out of the field if it gets too muddy so what i'm doing right now is driving the combine
back to those grain bins in the park kind of by where my dad parked wherever that is i cannot even
he's way over there it's so hard to see out these windows i could not line that truck up
and uncle chris said it was really time is of the essence when pouring down rain so he helped
me with that and i'm very appreciative of that oh you can see the water running off the top of my
combine because i'm headed downhill uncle chris is driving kind of fast in the tandem to get it
out of the field faster than 8.9 miles an hour at least and those red combines just stop too so it's
the end of harvest day for everyone at dinner time the radios aren't even working that well anymore
how do you want me to park park on the other side of the garden
now everyone's tires are super muddy all right now i'm going to idle it down and
get everything ready to go because it's pouring rain and i'm going to have to make a run for the
own car