Corn Picking Time

The chill is in the air, the corn has dried down enough to pick, so off we go!  Watching the corn roll through the corn picker head and seeing the big ears drop into the gravity box is kind of exciting as we see each box fill up to the top.  Usually I'm running the picker while Farmer Rick is unloading into the elevator which takes the corn up into the corn crib.  If we fill both cribs up, we have enough for grain for the cows for about a year and a half.  This corn is ready much earlier than last year when the moisture content was so high.  We were combining our corn on Christmas Eve, trying to beat a snowstorm that was coming in.  At the top of a hill in one of our fields, the back of the combine dropped into a huge hole which turned out to be one of three bear dens in the expanse of an 18 acre field.  The back axle of the combine snapped in two and there she sat.  So on Christmas Eve, while most are sipping hot chocolate and enjoying time with family and friends, were were out in the swirling snow, down in some not so good smelling stuff (poke your nose in a bear den sometime - you'll understand!), jacking up the combine to swap in an axle that we had gotten from a neighbor's combine that was junked out sitting back in the woods.  But, the guys managed to fix her up after a full day of work and got the corn in so that we could enjoy a nice holiday.