Harvesting Wheat (and Faith) by Linda Hubalek

Combines are running full blast to get the wheat harvested before the next storm blows into the state. Rain is good for the row crops (milo, corn, and soybeans are grown in our area), but not when you need to get the wheat harvested.

Not only must the combines maneuver through the field without being stuck in mud, big trucks must drive next to the combine in the field while the wheat seed is augured out of the combine bin into the truck’s bed.

Then what happens to this grain? The loaded truck drives to a nearby grain elevator to unload the wheat, and then back to the field for the next load. Eventually semi-trucks will move the wheat from the storage elevators to rail cars or ships to travel where it will be used. This Kansas wheat might be in your next loaf of bread or bowl of pasta, whether you live in the United States or overseas.

It takes a lot of hard and fast work—and faith—that you’ll get the wheat cut while it’s at the right ripe stage. Hail can break the straw stems so that it can’t be cut, or continuing rain can cause the wheat seed to sprout while the plants are still standing, and ruin it.

Farming is always a gamble but it seems to be intensified during wheat harvest. No forty-hour weeks now. The combine is running continually until the straw is too tough to cut—which could be anywhere from 6 pm to 1 am. During the downtime (early mornings) machinery needs to be repaired and maintained, besides whatever else needs to be done on the farm.

Uprooting their families and moving to Kansas was a gamble for the Swedish immigrants too, just like wheat harvest. The Planting Dreams series (with Harvesting Faith being the third book) is dedicated to the people that homesteaded on the Kansas prairie to make their living by farming.

After 148 years from my immigrant ancestor’s arrival, my family is still farming and harvesting wheat today.

Want to see a video of a neighbor's last year's wheat harvest? Watch their Peterson Farm Bros video (it starts after the commercial.)

Thanks for stopping by the Sweethearts of the West Blog. 

Linda Hubalek

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Swedish Immigrants homesteading in Kansas by Linda K. Hubalek

This past weekend was the 75th anniversary of our Svensk Hyllningsfest, Lindsborg's bi-annual festival honoring the Swedish pioneers who settled in the Smoky Valley of central Kansas. It's been held on odd years ever since 1941. The two highlights for most people are the school children dancing for the opening ceremonies on Friday, and the Saturday parade.

All the school children, grades one through eight, are in Swedish costumes and perform three dances per class. It's fun to watch the timid steps of the little ones, to the accomplished maypole dance of the oldest girls.

Saturday's parade theme was "Diamond Dala", for the 75th anniversary and because we have Dala horses all over town- from house signs- to four-foot dalas on street corners. My two favorite floats were themed "Dalas are a girl's best friend" and "Hello Dala".

You may ask, how is this related to our western blog theme of "Sweethearts of the West"?

Several ethnic groups settled in Kansas after the Civil War, because of the Homestead Act giving free land to anyone who would live on it.

My Swedish ancestors came to America in 1868 and settled in Illinois. A year later, a pastor from Galesburg, Illinois organized a group of over 200 immigrants to move and settle together in central Kansas. They drew by lottery what land they would homestead, and built sod houses or dugouts to live on the prairie.

At that time the railroad were being built across Kansas. For an income source, the Swedish immigrant men worked in teams, one man worked away from home laying the railroad tracks going west, while the other man stayed home working on their homesteads and taking care of two families.

So you may not think of a Swede being a part of the frontier and "wild west", but they, and many other immigrants, were living and working in that important era of western history.

 If you're interested in reading about the immigrants homesteading in Kansas, please enjoy the historical fiction book series Planting Dreams, featuring my Swedish ancestors.

Thanks for stopping by to enjoy today's Sweethearts of the West blog.

Linda Hubalek

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A Month of Memories by Linda Hubalek

Instead of a post relating to a western topic this month, I decided to write something personal. I think it helps readers see us writers are affected by everyday events like everyone else, except we may work our life events into a story we might write in the future.

It's been a month of memories for me, both good, bad, and sad as I clean out my parent's home of their final belongings. Both were now in the nursing home and the material existence of their sixty-nine years together had to be reduced to fit in a few plastic tubs of keepsakes.

Mom was a "paper saver" so every childhood event program the four of us kids were ever in was saved, along with canceled checks of major purchases, recipes clipped from magazines, greeting cards going back to over fifty years ago, to snapshots from the 1920's to present day.

Everyday events listed on pieces of papers told the history of my parent's marriage and as us children were added to the family. The history of previous generations were also revealed from the photos and documents mom saved from her and my father's parents and grandparents too.

It's easy to see where my ideas for stories come from when handling my family's paper trail.

The check stubs I found from 1919 showed the final dispersal of money to the children of Samuel and Charlotta Johnson, who I based my Planting Dreams series on.

The material scraps my grandmother was using for quilt blocks is still in the same shoe box she put them in before she suddenly died in 1946. Quilts made by her and her ancestors were worked into my Trail of Thread  series.

Photos of the wagon my newlywed parents used to haul their meager belongings from their town apartment to their newly rented farm in 1946, were studied and described in my great grandparent's trip from Kansas to the Indian Territory in my Tying the Knot book.

And this same wagon, saved and rebuilt by a grandson, was used to carry my father's casket to his final resting place last week.

You can bet this event will be mentioned in a future story of mine too.

Hello from the Kansas Prairie!

Linda Hubalek

Hello from the Kansas prairie! I'm Linda Hubalek, a new member in the Sweethearts of the West blog group, and I thought I'd introduce myself in my first post.

I didn't plan to be a writer, but maybe I started my writing career in sixth grade. We had to write a paper on "what I want to do when I grow up". I came across this paper while cleaning my closet a decade later (mom had kept it), and according to my dreams back then, I wanted to be a farmer, but my last line was "but alas, girls can't be farmers".

But I did go into my chosen field when I earned my Bachelors Degree in Agriculture and Horticulture from Kansas State University. I did agronomy research for years before starting a wholesale horticulture business. My company, Prairie Flower Creations, grew and dried flowers, ornamental corn, and mini pumpkins for the florist trade.

In 1990 I was featured in Country Woman Magazine, just when my husband's job transferred us to California. I sold my business and tried to cope, growing flowers and pumpkins in five-gallon buckets on our "cement lawn".

Historical fiction books by Linda K. Hubalek

I started writing about the family and farmland I was homesick for and started a new career, writing about my pioneer women ancestors who homesteaded farms in Kansas in the 1800's.

My husband and I eventually moved back to Kansas, bought land next to my family, and raised bison for a decade. So not only have I fulfilled my dream to be a farmer, I've made a career writing about pioneer women who also connected with the prairie land of Kansas.

Brides with Grit, Historical Romance series by Linda K. Hubalek

Currently I'm working on two series. My Brides with Grit series is classified as a sweet romance, featuring fictional couples living near the cow town of Ellsworth, Kansas in 1873. You'll notice they have a catchy title theme...
Rania Ropes a Rancher, 
Millie Marries a Marshal, 
Hilda Hogties a Horseman...so it's a fun series for you to start, and continue reading as I write the eight books planned in the series.

Kansas Quilter Series by Linda K. Hubalek

My Kansas Quilter series is loosely based on my great grandmother, Kizzie Pieratt's trip to Indian Territory and back to Kansas to homestead her farm. The first book, Tying the Knot is now available and Patching Home and Piecing Memories will follow later this year.

Please enjoy my future blog posts, and read my book series too. My books are available in paperback, ebook and audio versions on Amazon. 

If you're curious of what else I do, please go to my other two websites, Bison Farm, which promotes the great American Buffalo, and Linda's Buffalo Meat Recipes, where I've posted recipes featuring bison meat. Please visit my author website and my Facebook page too.

Many thanks from the Kansas prairie...!
Linda K. Hubalek