GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Cut Bank farmer Roger Sammons planted his wheat crop in mid-May and then drove south for more than two months.
He was not leading the leisurely, laid-back lifestyle of a gentleman farmer.
Far from it.
Rather, Sammons was heading out for his eighth season leading a team of custom cutters who harvest wheat and other crops for farmers as far away as north-central Texas.
They work their way back to Montana, serving some repeat customers with standing agreements while landing extra work where they can.
Pulled by five semi-trucks, the caravan stretches about three blocks long. It includes three combines with 40-foot headers, a tractor and grain cart, a service trailer, a crew trailer and a cook trailer, nicknamed Granny. Most are painted red, the company's color.
The crew of nine includes 50-year-old Roger Sammons, his 22-year-old son Sage, a veteran of seven summers, and Roger's 59-year-old sister, camp cook, Judy Moats.
They sometimes work 16-hour days for weeks on end when conditions permit.
"I try to give crew members at least six hours sleep unless we're being pushed by the weather to finish quick," Sammons said.
Sammons thrives on the work.
"I love the hard work and hard play," Sammons said, "but it's not a life for everybody. We've worked as many as 38 days straight in some years and were dog tired. We haven't been that lucky this year with drought making for so-so crops in the southern states and rains slowing us early on in Colorado."
Sammons and his crew arrived back in Montana in late July, waiting a couple of days for the winter wheat to dry near Fort Benton before wading into a good crop.
Crops were poor in the first part of harvesting this year, especially in Texas where the drought and some range fires left fields looking pretty barren, he said.
During the first six weeks, the Sammons crew harvested dry-land farms that yielded four to 16 bushels an acre, compared with 30 to 50 bushels in typical years, Sammons said. Even the yield on some irrigated fields that usually draw 60 to 90 bushels an acre were down to 30 bushels.
Yields have been better since mid-July, 40 to 50 bushels an acre in Colorado and Montana, Sammons said.
But the lower yields early on reduced bonus payments for the crop harvester.
Sammons' wife Lisa, who keeps watch over things in Cut Bank and visits occasionally, joked that her husband "is living his boyhood dream and going through a mid-life crisis."
Sammons agreed to a point; after all he named his custom-cutting business Sammons Adventures.
But he said there were some good financial reasons why he got into the business.
When the Sammons family increased the acreage of their farm in 1997 to raise 400 acres of winter wheat near Big Sandy and 5,500 acres of specialty barley near Cut Bank, he began custom harvesting local crops throughout Glacier County.
By 2004, Sammons decided to take the advice of a long-time friend and custom harvester to trade in his combine for a new one, and then custom cut throughout the Midwest.
It made sense, he said, because custom-cutting crews often don't get as far north as Cut Bank, where harvests are later, or leave before the harvest is completed to head south for more lucrative work harvesting corn.
Essentially by harvesting grain for two or three months in Texas, Kansas and Colorado, Sammons said he could afford to buy three large combines and have a custom crew available to do his own fields when he gets to Montana.
"The farm is our mainstay economically," he said. "I break even or make a little bit with the custom harvesting."
Roger Sammons said the six younger crew members are around college age.
He pays them $2,000 a month, plus a bonus of $350 a month if they last a full season.
"That's probably enough to pay for a year of college, but at a state university or junior college, not a private college," he said.
They get free room, in a large crew trailer that has two bathrooms and sleeps 10 in bunk beds.
And crew members get three hearty meals a day, said Moats.
"They're not just sitting in combines or trucks all day, but are in and out of the vehicles doing maintenance and other tasks," she said. "They're young men with big appetites."
She makes them big breakfasts and provides sandwiches, chips and energy bars for lunch. She cooks hot dinners and takes them to the fields in crock pots and hot bags so crew members can take a break and eat on folding tables.
Milk doesn't taste so good in the dry, hot fields, including Texas where temperatures peaked at 115, she said.
"They're longing for something cold and wet, and like iced tea," she said.
Sammons said he and his crew are glad to be back in Montana.
"It's nice to be home where the nights cool off even when the days are hot," he said. "We can actually open the camper windows and enjoy some cool air before we sleep."