2004 Braathen Harvesting
Equipment

Combines: John Deere 9650 Walkers. *Update* He will be running two new 9660 STS combines for 2006.
Headers: John Deere 930R (30' wide)
Semis: International 9300 with 13spd trans, CAT engines.
Trailers: Jet, 2 hoppers, had to be short to be legal when pulling doubles.
Grain Cart: John Deere 4960 MFD pulling Orthman 1096 Grain Cart (Cap. 950 Bu.)
Transport



Kiowa, Kansas(June)
We arrived in Kiowa near the end of May after taking about two days to get there from Braathen Harvesting HQ's near Devils Lake, ND. The wheat was about of average yield for this area (40 bu/acre), but ahead of schedule by a fair amount. We had a good stretch of dry weather while we were down there. In general we would be up by 7 each day and back from the field by midnight. For the most part tough straw was not an issue down here, and we probably could have cut a few more hours each day, but a guy has to sleep sometime. I was suprised how many of the fields in this area were terraced. On a real good day, with big, non-terraced fields, close to one another, we could cut close to 300 acres. On the few rainy days we had, we spent our time doing some maintenance work on the equipment and catching up on sleep. There were a lot of custom combiners here. Our camper was parked on a campsite along with maybe 30 other campers, all from other custom combine operations.


Bucklin, Kansas(June)
We arrived in Bucklin right about the time the wheat was ready to cut. The farmers we were cutting for had harvesting equipment of their own, but not quite enough to get everything out in a timely fashion.


Quinter, Kansas (June)
We left Bucklin soon after finishing our work there and our next stop took us to Quinter. There was some hail damage here which hurt yields of some fields considerably. It was here where we got hit with some rain delays (about a week). Mom and Dad were able to send a box of magazines down so I was able to at least catch up with what was happening around Minnesota.



Onida, South Dakota (July)
We arrived in Onida finding the winter wheat was still a fair amount off from being able to cut. The farmer we cut for here had a house available the crew could stay at, which we all really enjoyed. Our downtime was spent playing pool, watching an unhealthy level of tv, laying out in the sun, doing some trap shooting, and reading whatever newspapers/magazines would could get our hands on. I was also able to take a week off to return to Chatfield to see friends and family. The downtime in SD was very relaxing, but we were all sure anxious to get back to work. Once we were cutting, I realized just how great of a place this location in SD this really was: big flat fields, all at least 80 acres in size, with most being near 160. Yields were a little above average in this region (65 bu/acre). A guy can harvest a lot of bushels of wheat in a day with fields of this size and yields like that. The elevator we were dumping at had three dump pits. At times the farmer we were cutting for had a truck and driver available for us when the lines at the elevator got too long. It was here we started cutting spring wheat. This particular farmer also had corn and sunflowers which Braathen Harvesting returns to harvest in the fall.





Devils Lake, North Dakota (August)
While in Devils Lake Kent's retired father teamed up with us, he also ran a JD 9650 walker. We added his triaxle truck (Western Star) to our arsenal of grain hauling machines. A nephew of Kent's operated the grain cart, while a retired farmer ran the additional truck. This area had a lot more rocks than any previous place we had combined, which made combine operation a little more stressful. Some areas had some severe lodging witch at times slowed the combines down to 1 mph. I left shortly after finishing spring wheat. I spent two days combining barley with the pickup head. There was also some canola to harvest yet in this area before heading back to SD for sunflowers and corn harvest. A neighbor happened to be on a fishing trip near Devils Lake while I was finishing up. He spent the day in the combine with me, then we spent a couple days fishing Devils Lake (the fish were not biting) and he drove me back home.