With its six legs scrambling, the cricket tries with all its strength to stay atop the churning grain in the hopper.
For about 30 seconds it holds its ground, running as fast as it can. But then it slows and slips into the sucking maw of the auger, to be spun up into the darkness of the grain bin.
Its fight to keep up with harvest is over.
The Agar family, who run the farm 10 kilometres east of Saskatoon, is doing better. As son Don unloads another truckload of barley into the bin, he seems excited, even slightly intoxicated with the feeling of a smooth-running harvest day.
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Don continually checks the hopper, adjusts the angle of the truck box and checks the level of grain in the bin as he tries to keep doing something useful.
This is a perfect harvest day, one not to be wasted. The skies are blue, it’s hot and dry, the barley is swathed and the combine running well.
Don is under more time pressure than Jim, who is half finished combining a nearby field. Jim is filling the combine’s hopper every 22 minutes, a pace pushing Don’s unloading ability.
But while the Agars were working like a well-oiled machine on this late August afternoon, their machinery was running like a dysfunctional family.
In the midst of harvest the week before, Jim heard a “terrible clatter” coming from the back of his tractor. Things that clatter don’t portend good news.
As he stopped the tractor, which was running a pull-type combine, he knew major repairs were necessary – repairs for which he did not have parts. With no tractor, there would be no combining. With no combining, no harvest.
Jim’s first thought was to make things better. He immediately called his machinery dealers on his cellular phone, catching them just before they closed for the day.
Only a few years ago Jim would have missed the connection, because the Agars used to rely on a two-way radio to keep the house connected to the combine, and there wasn’t always someone home.
The dealership arranged to have the tractor picked up, and ordered parts from the United States that day.
Although the tractor was shut off, disturbing sounds continued.
“There was swearing. Terrible noise. Fire coming out of him,” said Don about his father’s on-field reflection of their predicament.
On this day, however, Jim is happy even though his tractor is still in the shop and he has had to rent a combine. He’s even willing to stop for a few minutes to have a picnic supper off the endgate of the pick-up that his wife Peggy has brought to the field.
She hasn’t been able to come often this harvest, since her catering business has been busy. But tonight she had a cancellation, so she packed up the sandwiches, gathered some fresh vegetables, filled a two-litre jug with cold iced tea and headed out.
Jim and Don quickly consume the food, absorbing the tea in silent gratitude. The temp-
erature climbed to 27 C that day, and inside the truck and combine the heat is intense.
With the combine running without air conditioning, Jim has often had to ride shirtless, sweltering in the greenhouse environment of the cab. And he hasn’t had the engaging chatter of Saskatoon radio stations to distract him from the heat and itchy barley dust.
The combine has a radio, but the engine is so loud that Jim wears earplugs to save his hearing.
But it allows him to focus his thoughts on two anxieties.
“Where’s the thunderhead,” he said, eyeing the hazy blue sky suspiciously from the top of the combine’s steps.
“And (I think about) if this thing under me is going to keep running.”
The great fear now is that something will stop harvest. Last week heavy rains shut down operations for five days. Jim doesn’t want to see that again.
This is one of the fastest harvests the Agars have ever had. It started early, in the last week of July.
The hot, dry summer and early seeding hastened crop maturity, and while the grain doesn’t look great, it’s not bad either. The barley is light, probably too light for most to go malt, Don muses. It’s averaging about 41 pounds per bushel, and maltsters demand 48 lb.
But it will make good livestock feed and that should be in demand because hay yields have been poor across the province this year, said Don.
Getting the crop off quickly and making sure quality isn’t damaged by rain and frost is important, so early or not, Jim and Don are anxious to finish eating and get back at it. The family has worried about low grain prices all season, but those thoughts are put aside during harvest.
The sound of the smallest parts in the combine are louder than the loudest shouts from the market.
The Agars finish their drinks and climb back into the combine and truck. Jim dumps another load of barley into the truck and Don races to the bins. Jim starts off again, combining his way across the field in a belching cloud of brown dust and golden barley chaff.
As Peggy drives back to the house, she muses on the rush of harvest, a time that is hurried, intense, tiring and deeply satisfying.
“It’s a pretty good life if you think about it,” she said.
