With the Misener’s

Today we traveled to Onida, SD, but it was hard to leave the Misener Family behind. They were more than hospitable, they were like family to us. Tuesday, we did some lounging around and interviewed some of the family. Mom made homemade tomato sauce for the first time with Verena Misener. They made a wonderful spaghetti lunch. There has been some down time for the Misener Family because they are not able to harvest the wheat due to the wheat not being ripe enough.

During their down time, I learned, that the Misener Family does preventative maintenance on their machinery so that they do not have any problems when cutting the wheat. We all got to ride in the combine and that was pretty fun! Emma Misener trains people how to use the combine and started cutting wheat herself at age eleven.

Tuesday and Wednesday dad interviewed several people in the Misener family. I took some behind the scene photos while mom had the flip camera taking some behind the scene footage. I heard some very interesting stories about what they do on the harvest, and also I learned a lot about how they harvest the wheat and how they use the machinery.

I noticed throughout the whole trip that harvesting is not all about cutting the wheat. There is a lot of time and effort put into doing the laundry and cooking the food. Kristy, the mom, washes about ten pairs of jeans everyday. Kristy and Verena get up early and start cooking delicious meals. Throughout the day they watch the little kids and help clean up camp. I would have to say the Kristy is definitely the backbone of the family.

These past few days have been quite enjoyable, being able to learn new things and getting to know some amazing people. Back home before we came, dad would always talk about them non stop, and we were like we have got to meet these people, and now we know why he always talked about them. They were the nicest people I have probably ever met.

Laken W.