Picture Man Travels Butler County: Bringing in the Harvest

Wed, 10/29/2014 - 8:53am — Diane Dyer

Fresh picked corn going into the grain cart.

The Picture Man loves to take pictures and write stories almost as much as he enjoyed hearing a good tale. Once again he was on a mission in search of the perfect picture story. He was traveling in Butler County on Caneyville Road headed towards Possum Hollow Road, which was in the heart of the county. Looking to his left as he traveled he saw what seemed like countless rows of corn, looking to his right seemed like a repeat of the left side. An occasional fence post and a beech tree would break up the monotony. He had once read that if you would carve a wish on a piece of beech wood and bury it, the wish would come true as the wood aged. He also noticed as he drove along that the fall colors were starting to come in which meant harvest time was here.

Today he would be visiting long time Butler County farmer Pat Daugherty and observe corn harvesting. Corn or maize has been used as a food for centuries and in more recent times was starting to come into its own as biofuel.
Pat Daugherty and his family have been farming the land, or as his wife LeAnn says, “The soil” for five generations, Pat himself for 34 years. The 1400 or so acres that he farms is not part of a giant company but a family farm.

Chelsey checks the equipment.
Pat's dad Chelsey who is 90 years old started his farming days with a mule before he got called to spend time with the Marines in World War II. Chelsey still gets around the farm to stay on top of what is going on, as Pat will tell you "Once a Marine, always a Marine".

Computer screen inside the combine.
The Picture Man realized while riding up high in the six row modern combine that picks 300 bushels every fifteen minutes, is equipped with a computer and a satellite link that there is more to farming than he thought. Everyone knows that the weather affects farmers but when Pat started telling him about moisture content, cover crops, crop rotation, fertilizer, pesticide and soil samples things seemed to get quite involved. Let there be no doubt that as Pat states "I'm a farmer but I'm also a business man". Pat’s corn which will be replaced with soybeans, will wind up being feed for beef or chicken stock with a small percentage used as ethanol which is added to gasoline.

When the Picture Man left Pat's field corn operation he took a look back and saw bright sunshine, lots of corn stalks, and the men and machines taking care of business. It was a good day to be bringing in the harvest.