House on Wheels??

Craig Lemieux gave me a call as I was riding home from work today and informed me that he would be over to pick me up in 30 minutes, we were going to take a ride in a combine.
North east of the city one of Craig's employees also has a family farm (Craig always has a connection). Both Craig and I appreciate the complex and sophisticated equipment associated with the farm industry. The Lee family farm was rolling 3 brand new Case 9000 series combines - very cool.
I jumped in with "Swen" the hired hand. He was more then happy to have someone to talk to, of course I twenty questioned him right away. The monitor at Swen's right hand was the heart of the whole machine. Absolutely every piece of info was at his fingertips. Moisture content, bushels per acre, satellite location and the easy stuff like speed, rpm - everything. All of that information can then be downloaded and passed to the elevator or the farmers computer.
Off loading the hopper on the combine into a cart that drove along side. We never stopped.
Looking out the front window. The header is 40' wide.
Thought that this was a cool photo with the sun going down. Offloading the beans into the cart.

I am by no means an expert, but the farmers of today have a steep learning curve in being able to operate equipment like this let alone maintaining it. They have to be on top of the commodities market, trends, weather, computers and be skilled in the knowledge of how to manage a modern farm operation. Farming is big business that is influenced by world wide pressure, it was a pleasure to spend just a short time seeing what it is all about.