06/13/16
I’m Amanda Adams from Adams Harvesting in Tyrone, Oklahoma. My husband is Anthony Adams. We have three kids Kadin (12), Cameron (11) and Keagan (9). We have been running a custom harvest business since 2013. Anthony has been a custom harvester for longer but had stopped for a few years to help on his dad’s farm. Anthony and his dad farm a bit over 5,000 acres around where we live. I help with some of the tractor driving and with cattle in the winter. My main job during the summer is combine operator! Every year is a different journey for us.
A little background on us. Anthony and I met in 2012 and married in 2013. At this time, he was just helping with the family farm. With the drought, he decided that maybe he should get back into custom harvesting. Now, I had only helped a few times at home when we decided this so I was a little scared. I didn’t grow up around any of this and had no clue what I was in for.
Our first summer on the harvest trail started at home on some local work and then to Wyoming for one of his old jobs. When he first started telling me all of the stuff we would need to have, I was a bit overwhelmed. Then, to go on to say how we would live out of a camper for weeks, hit up the laundromats to clean clothes and not return home until we were done…lets just say it was hard to be impressed. But, the kids and I have grown to appreciate and even love hitting the trail! Last year, we made six stops cutting wheat and finished the year on the farm with fall crops. The kids spent a lot of their summer on the trail with us but returned home for small doses of “normal” life through the summer.
This summer has thrown a far different line up as the crop here at home made excellent progress over the last month. We elected not to go south but rather be ready to start day one on the farm. As I write this this evening, there looks to be combines running from north Texas all the way to Kansas, and we have just wrapped up our second day in the field. Had we been playing in the mud in Texas, we would have been late. While we are in the field today, some of Howard’s (Anthony’s dad) wheat looks to be as much as two weeks away till the combine can enter. With that being the case, our next stop after completion of the farm is up in the air. Maybe Colorado, maybe Wyoming, maybe…who knows. Other HarvestHERs may understand when I say, my husband will make up his mind and let me know where we’re heading (if I’m lucky) the night before we need to head out!
To end this introduction, I’ll leave you with an update from our field. Yesterday (6/12/16), I made a last minute plan to go visit a niece and nephew up the road, while Anthony ran to Elkhart, KS for some finishing touches parts for our red machine. Not too soon after I got to their place, Anthony sent me a picture from the field…wheat and dust..a short visit made shorter. After grabbing our oldest nephew, Austin, and heading to the field, we were able to get both machines running and get three loads cut. This morning, we finished getting the grain cart to the field and Anthony got the boys lined out driving it while Howard kept trucks moving and Austin and I ran combines. I finally got to try out the new Deere today! I was a little intimidated at first, everything is backwards from the case! But it didn’t take long and I had it all figured out. As I left the field to go pick up our daughter, I got a call that our first breakdown of the season happened. Something you never want to hear. Let alone on your second day in the field. The shoe light came on on our case combine. The culprit? An over-greased slip clutch. Anthony told our nephew, Austin, “you’re not real good at screwing things up” laughing, and relieved, a couple bucks for a new thrust washer and a nut and it should be up and running! I am glad it wasn’t bad but still knocked combine out for the rest of the night and until we can get the parts in the morning.
