Star-Journbal Editor
Their wheat is stored away in hoppers, and their tallies are saved on hard drives.
But what cannot be hidden under bushels or contained in megabytes is the outpouring of praise to the "Lord of the Harvest" by the faithful in Marion County, who take their farming spiritually.
As the harvest moved into high gear this past Friday, local farmers — many of them devout Christians — expressed joy over one of the most valuable wheat crops in recent memory.
With the platform of his combine as his pulpit, longtime farmer Jack Regier looked upon his field and proclaimed,
"We have a lot to be thankful for."
Amen!
When the market for wheat closed Monday at $4.46 a bushel, it was highest for wheat during harvest time since 1996, local experts said.
And, while yields were coming in at about 40 bushels per acre, experts used the word "excellent" to describe its quality.
"A lot of people are surprisingly surprised that it's a little better than they thought," said Lyman Adams, Jr., president of Cooperative Grain and Supply, Inc.
He added, "The quality is really excellent."
Sign of an exceptional harvest manifests at the Hillsboro elevator this past Friday, as a truck pulls in and tips its golden load.
As grain pours into an underground bin, wheat dust billows, like a cloud of glory, in the angular rays of the late day sun.
Friday's weather was wondrous to behold, so Regier, 74, who has been farming for 50 years, took advantage it. He farms with his son Rex, of Hillsboro.
Busy-busy, the elder Regier's homily lasted only as long as it took his red combine to auger forth another load.
"It's been a good year with the family and with farming, all the way around," he said. "We didn't have any storms, so far. Bad ones, I mean. No real hail or anything like that.
"And we've gone through many a year like this and never had a serious accident. That's something to be thankful for."
Gratitude was the prevailing attitude from Hillsboro to Peabody, Canton to Canada, but no one was gloating.
It was time for farmers to consider what they'd received — just enough rain and just enough heat at just the right time.
And to consider what they hadn't received — none of the drought, none of the blight, and none of the hail.
In a field near Goldenrod Road, Gerald Jost floats on waves of grain in the air-conditioned cabin of his John Deere 9500. Digital gauges show it is separating wheat from chaff at a threshing speed of 1,000 RPM.
Out the back, rotating rubber spreaders shower straw upon the ground. With 650 acres to cut, Jost is making hay while the sun shines.
While the modern combine doesn't exactly drive itself, Jost is free to worship the "Lord of the Harvest" at times like these.
"I sit here and I praise the Lord for the weather we've had," Jost said.
Jost farms with his son, Doyle, who returns from the elevator in a big Ford F6000 truck pulling a 24-foot trailer.
"My boy owns half of this combine and half of that truck," Jost said. "He's been doing this and he's been milking dairy cows twice a day. He told me tonight he's tired. I know he is. He needs to get some help with that [dairy farm]."
From the window of his tall truck, said it was a "privilege" to work with his father, as his father with his.
"Wheat harvest has always been a big deal at our house," Doyle said. "When I grew up my grandpa was out here all the time. It was the highlight of his year."
That grain prices had risen due to bad crops in Texas, Oklahoma, even as close as western Kansas, was not forgotten.
"This year we're pretty fortunate," Doyle said. "We have a pretty good crop and there's a lot of places this year that don't."
On a dirt road north of Peabody, a contrail of dust chases a grain truck to a stop sign. While in a big hurry, it still takes awhile to work through the gears as it heads south, toward town, on Nighthawk Road.
Half-dozen or so townsfolk sit on store steps and wave as a grain truck roll down the main street, Walnut Street, in Peabody.
The truck stops at the four-way, where a poster on a barrel in the middle of the intersection invites all comers to a benefit supper.
It rolls past the yard at the auction house, where farm tools set out on long tables tonight will be sold tomorrow.
Bouncing over multiple tracks, the truck turns left to Mid-Kansas Co-Op.
A dry-erase sign reads,
"Have a safe harvest. Open until 9:30. Double cropping? We have the seed you need."
Chris Bielefeld checks the monitor to make sure the computer records weight and moisture data, and stores it on the hard drive. Sitting on a tall stool next to Bielefeld is his daughter, Megan, 8, dressed in her blue softball uniform.
"The crop is a lot better than last year," he said. "The prices are real good and yields are better than anticipated a year ago."
As location manager, Bielefeld will work from 7:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. during harvest, stealing away when he can, to watch Megan's ball games. Family time is hard to come by.
"You have to have an understanding wife at home," he said.
At Cooperative Grain and Supply's Canada location, falling shadows take the shine off the metal grain bins.
Clayton Garnica, 18, sits on the ground-level grate of the underground bin, waiting for another truck to unload.
"Now that the sun is going down, they've been coming in pretty steady," he said.
A pickup rolls in from another era. It's painted an aqua color seldom seen anymore.
Silhouettes can be seen over the dashboard. It's little Courtney Williams, 8, and her big sister, Becca, 11, joyfully happy to be with their dad, Jeff, at harvest time.
The girls say they've been riding in the truck and combine all day.
"Well, since about five o'clock this evening, which is all day to them, probably," Jeff said.
The truck, 1956 Ford with narrow tires, antique wood rails and license plate, takes little tinkering. It's the one Jeff rode in with his father, who died 1 1/2 years ago.
"I'm harvesting about 80 acres that my mom still has at her place," he said, adding, "This is the second harvest we've had without my dad."
Nightfall brings more trucks filled with grain. In the dark fields, in the distance, harvester lights seem to twinkle, like stars in the night.
It's impossible to see who is out there, reaping.
But the One, who made the harvest and the stars, knows them all by name.
