You're thinking about harvest right now, aren't you?

October brings that feeling–the gathering, the abundance, the tables about to be filled. But here's something you might not know: the wheat that will become your holiday bread was actually harvested back in July, in the heat of summer, when Kevin and Laura Poss of Grains From the Plains were living their own version of Christmas.

"I always say harvest is like Christmas in the secular sense," Laura explains. The coordinating outfits, the extended family gathering, the traditions you plan your whole year around. Except instead of a tree, there's a combine. And instead of presents, there are grain bins filling with Colorado-grown wheat that's waiting for you right now.

You might picture farmers starting at dawn, but harvest keeps its own clock.

Kevin's day begins at 7 am, but the real work won't start for three more hours. There are lunches to pack, water jugs to fill, trucks to unload from yesterday's haul. The combine needs greasing, fueling, and cleaning. All of this happens in careful preparation for 10 o'clock–the magic hour when humidity finally drops low enough that wheat kernels will actually shake free from their heads.

"Most people would be surprised we can't start first thing in the morning," Kevin explains. The night air holds too much moisture. Rush it, and you'll leave half your crop standing in the field.

So they wait. And when the moment comes, they run.

From 10 am until 10 or 11 at night, the combines roll and the trucks fill. Thirteen hours, sometimes more. When a truck reaches capacity, someone drives it back to the farm, unloads it into grain bins, and returns for another load. The rhythm repeats until humidity creeps back in and forces them to stop.

Meanwhile, there's other work happening in a different light. "Kevin makes hay while the moon shines," Laura says. To bale hay for their grass-fed cows, humidity has to be just right–and in Eastern Colorado, that often means working in the middle of the night.

On their farm near Hugo, these rhythms have played out for 90 years. Their kids climb into combines the same way Kevin’s cousins did 35 years ago, creating memories that will outlast the season.

"Harvest time is a family event," Kevin says. "Seeing the smiles on their faces makes any challenge worth it."

And there are challenges. An afternoon thunderstorm can shut down harvest for two or three days. Hail could erase an entire crop in minutes.

But the Poss family has learned to work with unpredictability, not against it. Their fields run in narrow 880-foot strips, so if soil starts to blow, it won't take the whole farm with it. They rotate wheat, millet, and fallow in three-year cycles. They've returned to heritage varieties and chemical-free practices–the same methods earlier generations used when the climate was just as "crazy," as Laura puts it.

"We haven't had to adapt much," she notes. "The weather has always been unpredictable here."

Once wheat harvest wraps in July, the equipment gets cleaned and stored. The fields rest–or become pasture for Kevin and Laura's grass-fed cows, who "fertilize" naturally as they graze. By September 1st, Kevin is already planting next year's wheat crop.

But the grain harvested in July? It's been carefully stored, waiting to become freshly milled flour. Every bag is milled on demand–never sitting on a shelf losing flavor and nutrition. The wheat that grew under summer sun, that survived the gamble of Colorado weather, that was harvested during those long July days–that's what you're baking with this fall.

When evening comes–if time allows–the combines shut down. The family gathers right there in the field for dinner together. It's a tradition from Kevin's childhood, now continued with his own kids.

And when July harvest wraps, they host their Wheat Harvest Festival. Guests enjoy pasture-raised pork from hogs raised on-farm and fed wheat “cleanings” that would otherwise go to waste. It is smoked by local smokers and paired with buns baked from their wheat by local bakers. Microgreens from a local CSA. Customers climb into the combine cab, ride behind a 1941 John Deere tractor, and meet the people who grew their flour.

"My favorite part is hearing about the bread our customers make," Laura says. "It gives me a 'why.' And customers enjoy that connection too. It changes the anonymity of farming and consuming."

Every bag of Grains From the Plains flour is milled less than 24 hours before it ships to you. Every kernel tells a story of families who waited for the right humidity, worked thirteen-hour days, gambled on the weather, and gathered for meals in the field at sunset.

As you think about harvest and holiday tables, you're connected to a Colorado harvest and family. The wheat in your pantry carries July sunshine. When you choose Colorado-grown grains, you're part of these fields, these families, these summer days that felt like Christmas. You're part of something that's been growing here for 90 years–and will keep growing because you chose to pay attention to where your food comes from.

Grains From the Plains is a longtime member of the Colorado Grain Chain, farming near Hugo on Colorado's Eastern Plains.