Meanwhile when I did not make it home we had a huge storm, thanks to my aunt have a few pictures of it to share. During the summer here in Eastern Washington we can have rather large thunderheads roll through, nothing like the Midwest, but still enough to strike fear in the hearts of farmers who see them coming. The worst part is you never know the path they will take and cannot control it anyway. As luck would have it the hail in Friday's storm hit about a half mile to the north of our fields, but we did see large volumes of rain (check out the pond that formed by our picking machine).
There was also a hop yard that fell down near some of our yards, which is a devastating site to see. I should have some better photos of it tomorrow and will try to dig up some old photos of us harvesting a downed yard to show you what the grower will do to salvage as many hops a possible.
Currently for an update on our harvest starting date, it looks like we will be going with a soft start running only one of our machines with a day shift on August 20th. From there we will start a day shift at our other machine and then roll into 24 hour a day operation soon after. This gives us time to work out any issues in the machines as it is easier to do repairs during the day.
Normally we do not have a pond in from of the machine, but we had one on Friday with a very small amount remaining until even today.
This photo was taken from ground level, as you can see we are looking straight at the top of a pole which should be 18 feet in the air. On the right you can see that the corner of the field can be seen still standing in the distance.
2 comments:
Thanks for always posting the large format images
We may eventually run out of space for images when posting in this manner, but there are so many little details that are missed if we do not post them in large format, such as the powdery mildew from early on.
Thanks for letting us know you enjoy taking a look at the photos.
Tyler
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