Crop Dustin...

This was one of those stories I've been wanting to shoot for a couple years, but haven't been able to find someone to shoot. I tried contacting a crop duster about 5 or 6 years ago but at the time his plane was out of commission, and other times they didn't have anything to work on. This time for my photo column I figured someone with an interesting job would be great for Labor Day weekend. It made for a really cool story and I learned a lot about the business and potential problems faced. The biggest problem was getting up at 5:30 to make an hour-long drive to Haskell to meet the pilot at the airport at 7am. As I've said many times before... I'm NOT a morning person. But I'm glad I did it, my only regret being that I didn't have more time. He only made one flight and the field he was spraying was far enough away that I wouldn't get there in time to shoot him spraying before he was done. But otherwise, it was really cool. You can read the story I wrote here.

Wheat Harvest

The wheat harvest has started, from looking at some of the fields I didn't think it would be all that great, but I guess looks are deceiving. Even some of the farmers I'd spoken to while shooting the story told me they didn't have real high hopes back in February, but weekly rains over the past few months seem to have made it a success. One of the farmers I shot harvesting told me he was get about 32 bushels per acre, which I'm told is good.

I only wish that could mean cheaper food prices but, I guess with fuel prices as high as they are nothing will help that anytime soon.

I only wish I could have spent more than one afternoon working on the story, there were a lot of fun photos to be had. I enjoy agriculture stories, I think because I'm a city boy and it is something new for me.