Harvest at Grandpa & Grandma's

My dad is always optimistic and ultra reasonable when he speaks about the crops he farms. The weather will do what the weather will do and there's nothing he can do about it, at least that's what he says. So, this fall with cooler than usual temperatures in September and too much rain in October fall harvest has been off to a frustratingly slow start.

Tuesday night, after our family took pictures at church for the pictorial directory (always a good time), we drove straight to the farm for combine rides! It just so happened that dad finished up the corn and drove on the yard with the combine to switch headers as we finished eating our supper. Noah "helped" Grandpa switch headers and then he and I rode along for a couple of rounds of soybean harvest.


My dad, always quick with a smile for his grandsons!




Seriously studying the combine.





There's the header dad uses for soybeans and milo - it has a fancy name like flex-something-something-something. At our house it's called "milo header".














Getting ready for the header switch...


"Milo Header" on...




Getting the header ready to cut beans...


Waiting...


Cutting beans!

Picking Corn

Does doing something twice make it a tradition? If so, then we've got ourselves a nice little tradition! This past weekend, we made our traditional trip to Nebraska to visit our friends Brad, Kara and Braden. Last year we went earlier in the fall, but this year we planned it to be during corn harvest!

There was just one snag in our master plan...fevers. Both Noah and Levi developed fevers as we drove to Henderson on Friday afternoon. Thankfully, Kara and Brad were still willing to host us.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early waiting for Brad to let us know when they were going to start picking. In the mean time, the boys played on the kitchen floor.

Braden's just a few months younger then Levi and we exposed him to lots of toy tractors. See, last year he wasn't crawling yet when we visited, but Levi was and poor Braden would get attacked by Levi and he didn't seem to appreciate it. This year, there were many fewer attacks, but the boys did show him how to fight over a tractor and we worked on boosting his immune system, too.

The funniest thing is that he pretty much carried around the toy combine all day on Saturday, he just loved it!

Their dog, Ellie, would often appear at the living room windows, wanting to know what we were up to. Noah and Levi thought this was terribly exciting, they would always announce when they spotted her!

Finally, Brad called and like busy bees we got ourselves bundled up and out to the field.

While we waited for the combine, tractor and grain cart to get to our end of the field Ben checked out the corn. It was impressive corn.

Levi, with his medicated fever, wasn't too sure about the chilly wind and tall corn.

Ben and Noah waited in the car to stay warm. Do you see the corn dust on the car? I knew nothing about corn dust until this weekend. It looked like red snow...kind of.

I believe this is a flail chopper, or so I've learned from watching John Deere DVD's with the boys. Brad calls it a shredder. John Deere's website calls it a Flail Shredder, which means we're both right! It chops down the corn stalks that the combine leaves behind.

Brad's dad Royce in the combine while Brad operates the tractor.

This is serious harvesting, a well-oiled-family-farm operation. Brad, his dad Royce, his brother JD and his cousin Kevin work the fields. The women in the family do their share of work too by bringing hot meals to the field at lunch and dinner every day. This farm girl was fascinated.

It takes them about 6 weeks to complete fall harvest.

Ben, Levi and Brad driving over to the trucks to unload the grain cart.

I realized when I got home and looked through my pictures that I didn't have a picture of Kara, at all! What a shame! But, I did have this photo with Brad in it, so I'm posting it. Brad hates having his picture taken, so I know he'll appreciate this candid shot. Right Brad?

This photo is blurry (I'm still figuring out how to take a good picture when there isn't adequate lighting) but this is my best photo of little Braden. He's talking quite a bit these days and his words were so crisp and a little sing-songy, very cute!

Kara and Brad - thanks so much for hosting us and our fevers in your house! We had a wonderful time. All the best as you continue through harvest season!

Weekend Visitors

Grandma and Grandpa Schrag came to visit this past weekend. The weekend was full of family, friends, Fall Fest, food and football. The weather was prrrrfect. And, as I write this on Thursday evening, it seems like Sunday was a long, long time ago! Here are a ton of photos to share with you the who's and what's of our weekend.

It is somewhat standard around here lately that Levi mows and Noah plays baseball/football/soccer.


It's hard to tell, but each boy has an apple in hand, laying on the kitchen floor.


Noah and I planted a very short row of carrot seeds in July. He was given a packet of seeds and since we don't have a garden, I jumped at the chance to help Noah learn about growing a plant. So, he diligently watered his "carrot seeds" - he never called them plants, always seeds. And finally, finally this weekend they were ready to be harvested. Three odd shaped carrots emerged from the ground, much to Noah's delight.






Saturday was Bethel College's Fall Fest and we all went in the morning. I volunteered to sell New Year's Cookies and while I did that the boys enjoyed the kids area. No pictures to prove it, sadly. After consuming too many New Year's Cookies the boys headed home for naps. After naps, Aunts Erica and Sherri came over with cousin Rylee and Great Aunt Susan came over too!


Aunt Susan proved to be a pretty good kicker!


Noah gobbled up all the attention and loved every tackle.

Noah loves to kick the football. He picks it up and tries to kick it like a punter does. He misses the ball, a lot. On this day, he actually started to catch the football. It was just a few weeks ago that we finally got him to catch a basketball. He is still a little hesitant with the football, but a couple times he held out his arms and caught it against his chest.

Erica, Sherri and Susan all live/work in the Wichita area, so they made all sorts of connections with each other.

Grandma Schrag got the boys to sit and draw with sidewalk chalk for quite a while! That's something I can't ever get them to do for more than 30 seconds. I think Grandma Schrag is way more creative then I am at keeping them engaged in an activity.

Saturday evening I took Noah to the Bethel football game to watch my cousin Austin play. Thankfully, we parked right next to grandpa Schmidt so we walked to the stadium with him. Noah had two million questions about everything that was going on, but otherwise sat still, ate popcorn and last through 3 quarters of the game.

Sunday was a FULL day, but I didn't have my camera along for any of it. We had brunch at Great Grandma and Grandpa Hertzler's, then we dashed off to church, out to lunch and then I walked 6 miles in the CROP walk in Goessel that afternoon. In the evening, we went to visit some friends and the boys ran around like wild children outside until it was too dark and cold to be outside.

Tim and Sue - thanks for making the drive out to Kansas!