It’s almost the middle of July and the street in front of the newspaper has yet to be filled with trucks bringing wheat into Superior. The lack of trucks isn’t a surprise but it doesn’t feel right.
There are several reasons. Wheat is no longer as popular with local farmers as it once was, this year’s drought has reduced, if not eliminated, the yield from many fields, and it is common for farmers to now bin the wheat on their farms as it cut and then bring it in to market after the harvest is completed.
And I may not recognize their trucks because the way they bring grain to town has changed. I remember when wheat was brought to town in four-wheel wagons pulled behind the family car or in small pickup trucks.
If those vehicles were still used today, the elevators would have no way to unload them. The hoists once used to lift the vehicles have gone the way of the threshing machine.
Now the farmers are operating semi-trucks with grain trailers that look much like the rigs operated by over-the-road truckers. I’m told in Nebraska farmers hauling their own grain from farm to a market less than 150 miles away are not required to have a CDL License. Over the weekend I watched a YouTube video that told the story of a young farm wife learning to drive one of the big rigs and hauling corn to an ethanol plant.
I didn’t know about the popular Laura Farms videos until Thursday, while sitting in a waiting room, I started to read a Nebraska Life magazine article about the Hamilton County farmer’s wife. My wait was not nearly long enough for I only got to read a paragraph or two of the article and I don’t subscribe to the magazine. I’m sorry I didn’t get to finish the article but I have now watched several of her well-done videos. Wish I had her video skills.
I am allergic to the dust associated with wheat harvest and consequently have never gotten to directly help with harvest.
However, I remember when the man who farmed the quarter section that adjoined my childhood home used a threshing machine. His wheat was cut and tied into bundles and then brought to threshing machine. From a distance, I watched the stack of straw grow. I dreamed of jumping and tumbling in the straw stack like I sometimes did in a new silage pile but that wouldn’t have been a good idea.
My father never had a threshing machine. He always hired someone with a combine to cut and haul his wheat to the elevator. That was a necessity because during harvest he struggled to keep up with work at the gasoline station. The bulk truck was out every day delivering fuel to the harvesters. The tire shop was busy repairing the old tires that had failed on the hot harvest days and the pump island was busy serving harvest vehicles. I didn’t like to work in the tire shop at harvest time for often we were asked to fix a tire that gone flat on a rusty old rim. Mounting and demounting tires on those old rims was dangerous.
Harry Robinson once told me a story about one of the rims that at least three times unexpectedly flew apart. One of those times the flying ring struck the South Ward school building.
One year the female driver of a harvest truck stopped at the station on every trip to have water added to the vehicle’s leaking radiator. While I added the water, she would buy several pieces of Double Bubble bubble gum. She chewed the gum a bit and then stuffed it into the leaking radiator, hoping the emergency repair would allow at least one more trip. It did but I later understood the radiator repair shop was not pleased to have to remove all the baked on bubble gum.
Grandfather was part of a partnership that owned a steam engine and threshing machine in the Abdal community. A shed was built on his Scully lease to store the machinery. I don’t know where he went to cut the ice but he built an ice house on the farm and filled it each winter. He said having ice helped get a harvest crew by providing cold water for them to drink.
I’ve watched my family use a binder to cut and bind corn fodder that was used for winter feed but I never got to help with that operation.
My father told of working on a threshing crew while he was in high school. It didn’t sound like the kind of work I would ever want.
But in recent days a former Jewell County farm girl told me she missed the opportunity to help with wheat harvest. She started taking trucks loads of wheat to the Otego elevator when she was only 16.
Monday afternoon a semi-truck driver, making a delivery to this newspaper, topped her story. He had only one pallet for us and I offered him unloading options. He obviously was proud of his truck driving skills and assured me he would have no trouble getting the big rig into the alley which serves our warehouse area. As part of his explanation he said he started driving harvest trucks when he was only eight-years-old.
Apparently, not all drivers share his experience for some have told me it is impossible to get a semi-truck into our alley.
One of those was just last winter. After trying and failing to get into the alley, he was able to back the rig through the parking lot on the north side of the newspaper plant. The lot was not empty and he had to wiggle the trailer around parked vehicles.
I have great admiration for his backing skills. Especially since it was at least a couple of hours past sundown. His arrival in Superior had been delayed by high winds and I agreed to stay late. The truck didn’t have a hydraulic endgate and we weren’t able to easily unload it in the street.
Reader Comments(0)