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Window to wheat harvest

Right now, in western Kansas, the wheat is beginning to turn color.

It always seems to me that it happens overnight. I drive past the same fields every day. One day they are green. The next they are yellow.

Now, it is entirely possible that I'm not paying attention to what's going on outside my car window. I've been known to sing along to the latest country tune or listen intently to the radio talk show or chat with my kids about what they had for lunch.

But for the most part, I have enough farmer in me to pay attention to crop progress. I'm not quite as bad as those who-shall-remain-nameless who seem to think that it is impossible to look straight ahead when driving down the road. Those people (you know who you are) are the ones whose speed varies constantly depending on how interested they are in what's going on in the field to their immediate right or left.

I feel sorry for the city-dwellers who find themselves following a pickup with a farmer driving. They might just think farmers are unsafe drivers--or drunk. I know that's not the case. I know it is simply a farmer observing his fellow agriculturalists.

If you don't know if this applies to you, listen to your wife. Has she ever said, "If you aren't going to pay attention to the road, then pull over and let me drive?" Has she ever threatened to get out of the car because you were checking out how far along the corn crop was and accidentally ended up too close to the ditch?

It's nothing to be ashamed of. It is just a fact. Farmers like to see what other farmers are doing. Knowing this, I recommend something that just might satisfy your need to know what's happening on other farms. As that wheat crop advances in maturity, wheat harvest has begun in the Texas Panhandle and parts of Oklahoma. And so, too, has our coverage of wheat harvest with All Aboard 2009 Wheat Harvest.

Our two correspondents, Jada Bulgin and Jenna Zeorian, have left their homes in the north and headed south to begin custom harvesting. They, along with their families and crews, are out in the field and know how harvest is progressing.

You can stay up-to-date by following them at www.allaboardharvest.com. They are posting daily about what's going on along the harvest trail. You can sign up for e-mail updates, join the Facebook group, follow along on Twitter, or read your Journal every week. Look in this week's issue for the story.

No matter how you follow along, the coverage this summer will be informative and entertaining. And, you don't have to listen to anyone telling you to pull the car over so they can drive.

Holly Martin can be reached by phone at 620-227-1806, or by e-mail at hmartin@hpj.com.

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