hello welcome to Kate's Ag today is a very exciting day because my dad and i are moving
combines out to the field to see if the wheat is ready
so i'm putting it in third gear
let's see
there we go now it's in third and i should be ready to go
put my header up a little bit gosh this is the first time i've been i've been in the combine in
a year and when it's in third gear they get really turny to say the least you have to be very careful
we are going to test the wheat and what we are looking for is how high the moisture is
that means is the wheat too green and not ripe enough to harvest if so we may have
to wait a week or a couple of days because we can only put so damp of wheat in the bins
we do have some bins with fans on them but ideally we want to cut the weed at about a 12 moisture
because not all of our grain bins have fans seeing if my combine's going to make this turn here
it's always a bit different hopping in the combine for the first time last year i did not road the
combines out to the field so i just got to start at a slow speed in the field going about 10 miles
an hour right now i'll go a little bit faster but you want to be careful especially when it's your
first time back in the combine and you don't want to steer too much as soon as you start steering
too much the combine gets out of your control but every time you steer you have to turn back so if
i want to go this way i have to turn that way and then turn back now i'm going a little bit faster
15 which is too fast right now actually so i'm going to slow it down a little bit it just doesn't
seem like a comfortable speed and my header is bouncing a little bit when your header bounces
you definitely want to slow down it's nice to have seats with air in them so that your whole console
here goes up and down with you the wheat looks ready but we can look ready and still be too moist
so we're just going to check that out now combines are fairly easy to row and road
is what you call it when you just drive them to from one field to another in third gear
when you're not just in the field they're fairly easy to road when
they have pickup headers and those are about 15 16 feet long and they pick up wheat that's
been swathed by its water and put in windrows the headers that are more challenging are the
35 foot 40 headers and last year i ran a 35 foot header this year i'm running a 40 foot header so
you really have to weave in and out of signs and power poles and everything it's
quite a challenge so now i'm full throttle and i'm going 20.8 miles per hour which i would probably
be more comfortable with if i had done this a couple of times and i've done it many many times
but just not this year okay i'm going to slow down a little bit it just it takes slowing down to like
19.9 versus 20.8 even though that's one mile per hour it makes a lot of difference it just
kind of takes the scary edge off of things these are definitely not pieces of machinery you want
to hurt by any means what's so cool it watches you have rust on your header when you start this
harvest season and then by the end it's super shiny and beautiful looking because the wheat
polishes it my dad's just in front of me so he'll be showing me the field we're going to go to and
you always rev it up before putting it in third gear or traveling at a fast pace just because
combines run better when they're revved up rather than when they're in their low idle kind of speed
i almost hit that sign there which is not good because my header is very short so i would
really have no excuse for that you don't have an excuse for it even if you do have a 40 foot header
because you're supposed to be paying attention i'm not sure if you can see but in the middle of
this field over there there's a homestead which is kind of interesting there used to be a lot
of homesteads in the area my grandfather showed me at the homestead map and it's unbelievable
to see the amount of farmers there and it's so amazing to look back on those homestead plots
and see some of your neighbors names and your own name and your own farm where it started
most of those farms are not in existence anymore but it's neat to see the ones that have been able
to keep going we're coming up pretty soon to a stop sign and then we'll be on the highway
harvest season is the time of year when you see all of the combines and big tractors on the road
i love it i wave at everyone just because i think it makes their day a little bit brighter and it
makes my day brighter as well so it looks like we're headed out east first so this will be a
little bit of a wave i enjoy traveling on the highway a lot better than gravel roads just
because it's less bumpy oh no wonder i'm chilly my ac is on full level of cold there we go you always
have to keep the air conditioner running in the combine just because everything will work better
and you want to keep your air conditioner working so you just change the temperature
that's something darcy taught me and he's one of our employees on our farm he's been with us
since before i was born i'm definitely not driving completely straight so my dad's probably looking
at his mirror and going gosh okay you can't drive my max speed is 21.4 to 5 miles an hour
you wouldn't think so but a tenth of a mile an hour makes a huge difference in a combine
now we're going by our neighbor's house and farm here's my dad's very good friend from school
and he was in my prop update video so i'll slow down a little bit because
i'm about to go over a bridge ah 9600 combine i've never driven one of those but
i do miss my 9610 if you haven't watched already you should watch the video and it's titled my dad
sold my combine from last year because i always used to drive the 9610 harvest we pretty much grew
up together it's been around since i was born and i was so absolutely distraught when my dad
sold it before last harvest i've been driving this ever since and it's just not the same
although it's so nice to watch it pick up wheat because it has a belt header
rather than an auger and the wheat goes through a lot smoother but it's just not the same my dad's
going not full speed so i had to slow down a little bit to give him some room i just got a
lighting system error and i had gotten another error too so i just pressed the check mark
there's so much technology in these newer combines that there's always sensors and little things that
are having problems so as long as it's not the major things you don't have to worry about it
because you could spend weeks trying to figure out which sensor went out and what's making this code
my cylinder looks like it's set at three so now we're going on to a different road
oh i started way too fast i need to slow it down i get a little ambitious when i'm roading the
combine clearly i've never had any accidents or incidents when rodent combines i usually
know when to slow down before it goes completely overboard and now that i'm straight i can go by
full speed but i just hadn't fully made the corner before i added on the power that was not a good
plan i suddenly realized and then this field looks absolutely beautiful um the golden wheat
is spectacular for harvest time and really makes everything look amazing your amber waves of grain
but this is so thin and also the kernels and the head on the wheat which is what we're harvesting
much smaller than it normally is i'm catching up to my dad again so i'm slowing down
now i'm slowing down because i'm coming around this
slight turn in the road it's kind of more of a corner than a turn
you almost need to slow down after your corn corners just to get a little more
center and then you can speed up and you're good
hit some potholes lighting system and my header started bouncing so i may not actually be able
to go full speed on this road this is a fairly wide road to road on so it's much nicer than
roading on something different i guess now dad has put his blinker on so i will too just
my blinkers right to the left of my steering wheel looks like barley cropped my to my right and not
a very good one at that it looks like this is the field do you have a copy dad do you have a
copy maybe he doesn't have a radio so i'll idle it down i'll put my parking brake in actually
so anyway i'm going to peel this right here Kate and i want you to bring in and
either park in the green spot i'm going to peel it down to the corner come back up
peel this the third just to uh but i want you as soon as i peel this first one pull in here
and park and then come with me so you can look at the numbers i got set on my combine
oh pull in their park get in your combine right so you can see what i'm doing
right what numbers i want on the combine okay and why that sounds good okay
does doing that tell you moisture
no i got a moiste meter in mine and yours isn't working that's why i want to use mine
but i don't want to peel a bunch of wheat or get a bunch of wet wheat in your combine
you know that makes sense i'm pretty excited harvest is starting oh my gosh
thank you so much for watching today's video i hope you learned a little bit more about how
your food gets to your table and all the hard work farmers put in to be able to get it there
make sure to like and subscribe you can also follow Kate's Ag on Instagram k-a-t-e-s underscore
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and purchase a Kate's AG tote bag they're up made of a hundred percent cotton and in the
U.S. which is amazing and the picture of wheat is actually a picture i took on our Montana farm of
winter wheat during harvest time and the combine i drew as well thank you so much for watching bye