Down On The Farm

Word was received this morning (Thursday) from one of the custom cutting guys who comes up here to the Golden Triangle every harvest. "Tall" Todd says he's talked with producers out in Kansas & that they had a cold front & wind, 10 above weather, & 50 mph north winds that blew through & FLATTENED the winter wheat. This storm hit from Lyman, Colorado & went east. The dry land winter wheat looks pretty bad & the irrigated had enough foliage that the vegetation close to the ground appears GREEN yet. I hope that Jim Anderson down at Grizzly Sports doesn't get wind of this...you know how Jim is about anything GREEN! The producers say they are going to have to wait for insurance purposes for a week to 10 days to get this straightened out but they seem to think they have to harvest it regardless, in order to satisfy insurance. Oklahoma & Texas were also hit by the cold & the verdict is still out down there. In Colorado, near Denver, the "Lucky" Linenberg's are optimistic with the good snowfall they had to protect their fall seeded crops from the cold. Custom cutter guy Todd talked with other custom harvesters & quite a few of them say that they are going to have a short run to the south because of the drought & cold. Todd is planning to go down with combines & a crew, but will only be taking a couple of semi's for grain hauling & a grain cart, as they have to be careful not to damage terraces when harvesting & the grain carts are easier on the terrace tops verses running a truck across them to get grain from the combines. I'm sure many of us recall what happened out at Gary Gollehon's place some years back! In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on crop news on my Puffman Blog. It won't be that long before we see the custom guys coming back to north central Montana!