by Mary Anne
Barton County WIFE

July 2002

It was supposed to be the last day of wheat harvest. It turned into the Stoskopf’s version of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, a popular children’s book.

The morning started early. John and Anthony were getting along fine baling the wheat straw into big round bales, just a few problems with the net wrap. Dean took over the baling at 7:30 a.m. Kevin started taking the wheat trucks to town when he got to work at 8. They had been filled the night before when Dean cut until midnight.

Grandpa Wayne had gotten to the wheat field and was ready to start cutting wheat but the combine wouldn’t start. John headed over there and got the combine started. Kevin brought the empty wheat trucks to the field and got lined out to haul wheat all day.

Dean was having big problems with the net wrap on the baler! So, John came back to help with the baler after getting the combine ready to go. He and Dean were up on top the baler when John’s cell phone dropped out of his pocket and into the baler. No problem – somebody would remember it when they got down. Kevin called and there was a problem with the grain cart so John jumped down off the baler and into his pickup and headed out. Dean climbed into the tractor and started baling again. A few seconds later, John remembered his cell phone. Dean stopped baling but it was too late for the phone. They managed to find the battery and enough pieces to later convince the store it was a cell phone and use the insurance to get a new phone (but without all the handy numbers programmed in).

It’s only 9:30 in the morning – the day should get better. Right? Wrong!

After John ran back to the wheat field and had gotten the grain cart fixed, he had to run to Great Bend for a new cell phone and to straighten out some insurance mix-ups so he was on his own for lunch. Since Grandpa kept cutting the whole time the grain cart wasn’t working, Kevin played catch up the rest of the morning. He was just far enough from town that he could barely make it back with an empty truck in time – even though Grandpa had 2 trucks and the grain cart to fill.

The net wrap on the baler was still not quite right – a couple of the wheat straw bales even exploded as they rolled out the back of the baler! But after 55 bales, it was time to quit baling wheat straw, grab some sack lunches for Kevin and Grandpa, and head over to the wheat field. Somewhere in there, they moved from one field to the next – only 3 pickups, 2 trucks, a combine, and a tractor with a grain cart were involved. (Dean also turned down an opportunity to be interviewed by a reporter – it just wasn’t the day to be talking to the press!)

Just about the time Dean called home to say there wasn’t much time left to cut and save any wheat for extra projects for the next year, things started falling apart again. Wayne and Mary Anne headed to the wheat field – meeting Kevin and Anthony in a wheat truck headed to town. At the field, the combine was shut down. Grandpa Wayne headed to Millberger for parts and John headed home to bring back jugs of water for the combine. With the back end of the Suburban filled with stalks of wheat, Mary Anne and Wayne headed off to Wayne’s tennis practice and other errands (including picking up a box from the florist’s to save wheat in and leaving a borrowed “lunch” box at the sandwich shop). Dean took off to move cattle into a different part of a pasture – where they would locked off so the guys could leave all the pasture gates down to get into and out of the next wheat field. It took an hour and a half for the combine to cool down enough to replace the radiator hose and fill the radiator back up with water. Once that was done, things seemed to mellow out and go right for a change.