Harvests, Hondas, and All Things Heartland

It’s harvest time throughout much of the Heartland, and of course that means the show's staff is running at maximum rpm. It's a good time of year for us. Besides having that once-a-year chance to capture all the frantic harvest activity on Heartland farms and ranches, the temperatures are back down to a rational level, and the light -- that primal element governing all photography -- is at its most beautiful. The pictures we're getting now will warm the hearts of Heartland fans during the cold months of winter, when many of our stations and RFD-TV are airing the later batch of our 22 new episodes.

So will a number of the stories we have lined up: the winter wheat harvest in Oklahoma, the durum wheat harvest on the plains of North Dakota. Both awesome spectacles evoking that iconic American image of "amber waves of grain." Durum wheat being milled into semolina, then into some of the best pasta your supermarket dollar can buy.

There's a fishing village in New Jersey and a "you-pick" farm in Alaska, where customers have one chance to get fresh greens for their table in an incredibly short growing season. There's one of the world's biggest peanut butter processing plants in New Mexico, of all places. By the way, we learned there is actually a word to describe the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth! Track down episode number 305 this fall, and you'll be able to impress your friends with that bit of trivia all winter long.

Following shows will fill you in on the challenges of growing the ubiquitous soybean, and an unusual relationship the Honda car company has with soybean growers in Ohio.

Some offbeat stories are coming your way as well. A veritable city of mammoth grain elevators on Lake Erie's edge in Buffalo, New York -- completely abandoned, and pretty weird. A south Florida "farm" that grows tropical fruits. One favorite fruit reveals what looks like raw kidney when it's cracked open. And our first ghost story will close out one coming episode: a not-quite-right restaurant in a tiny Great Plains town.

Our crews are still out there. If you see us, say "hi" and tell us what YOU would like to see on America's Heartland. We love getting your ideas. They help keep us down to earth, where America’s best television program about agriculture belongs!