Had .4 of rain that was mostly drizzle for a day. But when the clouds cleared the next afternoon we went back to the field.

William is teaching Z to run the grain cart. Lord help him.

Nate from Wyffle Seeds came by and road in the tractor with William. He was talking about some seed corn will be scarce next year because of the terrible growing conditions this year.

Need to get more podcasts on my ipod. I’m running out of shows to listen to. Hauled more water at dusk.

Another slow day. William and Bella had to take a few steers to the sale barn. Then it was left to the boys and I to handle the corn. The field we are in is close to the bins so we don’t have to haul it too far. Becker showed up to run the grain cart. Unloading on the go, is much faster. We put two cameras on the grain cart; one to see behind the cart and one to see inside the cart to watch the corn dumping. I’ll get some pictures or video on them.

The cattle haulers returned home. Next they had some cattle rustling to do. They were moving cows and calves around to get ready for weaning. Only one calf escaped but they quickly corralled him back into the lot.

Late after noon, it started to drizzle enough that we had to stop the combine. The video below was taken just before then.

I have to decided to capture this harvest season day by day as much as possible. We have started pretty much on schedule with only a few “hiccups”. Stopping and starting because of cattle work, wells going dry, hauling water, meetings, drizzle ect. The corn is testing around 22%. So we can only fill the drying bin so much at a time.

Day 1:

Mike came with his weigh wagon to calibrate the GreenStar monitor. Got the cheat sheets out to remind me of what buttons to push. Only had to call the guys at the dealership twice for all the different settings. At the Farm Progress show, we were told that the dealership will be able to see our screen on their computer to see what in the world we are trying to describe.

The kids have cleaned out the bins and replaced the doors. The boys’ job is to watch the auger dump loading the bins. Bella is to keep track of the pastures and water situation.

The following video is a short one. It was taken before I had the idea of a daily harvest log. If you would like to follow along with our daily harvest activities, subscribe to the post updates in the sidebar. New entries will be sent to your email. And ask any questions you might have.

Scott at our dealership will be elated to know that I am finally done working on the yield maps for 2010. You would think that it wouldn’t take much. Just print them out. Wishful thinking. We adjust each field for actual yield from elevator ticket totals making the maps more accurate. I had to calculate the total bushels from the tickets to the dry weight. This wasn’t hard just took time since there are about 35 individual fields. We had replant fields that had to be merged with the rest of their field since they were harvested on a different date. Hugo (I think that is what he said) at Apex support helped me with that maneuver. Then I had to go back and resize the small maps after I figured out how to enlarge them. Here is an update Apex could work on that would save a ton of time: If the map page with the legend below would give the perimeter of the map on the  print out or exported file. Then I wouldn’t need to go back and forth adjusting the placement of the map to best fit in the allotted space.

If you click on the map image it will take you to the full size file. This corn field is in Salt Creek bottom. The map shows the water damage from the wet spring. On the north the red shows the flooding from the creek. On the south water drains from a couple of hills toward the creek. Where the green shaded areas appear to the west, that is the sandy soil where the yield is usually the worst. While we have seen some good prices for the 2010 crop, we had below average yields. I’m off to email the maps to our landlords. I hope I can remember how to make all the map adjustments next year or Scott will wish I lost his number.

With the shorter days it is hard to get as much work done as we are used to. Though with so little rain, we do have all the anhydrous applied, the ground disked and or ripped. We have a few more sheds to haul manure out of. And one field to finish para-plowing. Next on the agenda will be to haul the corn out of the bins sometime in Dec. before the roads are closed to semis.

This is not our grain cart or tractor.

Oct. 13 was a good day for us. We finished another harvest season. There were only two days we couldn’t work in the field because of rain. Now the combine and heads have been blown off and put away. We are now chiseling. And William has baled some corn stalks for winter bedding for the cows. He is talking about hooking up the para plow to break up some ground from compaction with all the rain the past three years. I need to print out the yield maps to send to all the landlords. Even though the harvest is over, there’s always more to be done.

After letting William drive for a while, he complained that the seat was too low. Well besides my being 4 inches shorter than he, I don’t want the seat cutting the circulation in my legs. I reminded him that both Phil on Deadliest Catch and Alex on Ice Road Truckers both were hospitalized from blood clots caused by sitting for long periods. He didn’t think I had much to worry about. Those guys sat for months and months. I am in the combine for around 40 days. I didn’t tell him about what I saw on the show Monsters Inside Me.

This little soybean was hanging from a cob web in the combine’s front window. Last year I didn’t have much good to say about beans. Much like most years. But this year has been different. The plants are maturing evenly. The stems are not tough. Plus the yields are pretty good for all the rain we have had. Fortunately, William decided to plant more beans this year. The corn yields are below average. They did not take the wet spring / summer as well as the beans. So hopefully with good yields and a decent price the bean will carry the day. (year)

I would have knocked on wood after my last post. That day I had another conversation with Loren after the head quit raising on its own. I thought there was an adjustment that I hit wrong. He said to check the hydraulic levels. They were fine. I kept running. Then the head wouldn’t raise at all. Next BGC died and buzzers went off, lights flashed. We had a problem. By this time I was letting William drive. He got  it running again but there was no steering. Struggling with the wheel, he backed it to the other end of the field. We called the service dept. They said we shouldn’t have kept it running after it died. It may have burned up the main gear case that is lubricated by hydraulic pump. A story was told of how someone just did that last week. His combine was still in the shop. It was a big mess. We thought we were screwed.

If you have to have a service truck come out, you want one this size.

Not this size.
It means that the problem is bad enough that the combine needs to be worked on in the shop and you can’t drive it there. So after John determined that there was no hydraulic pressure anywhere. He called for the semi to haul it back to the dealership. I have never seen how a combine is loaded on a trailer to transport. So I got an education. While I stood around taking pictures thinking this should make a great blog post, the guys loaded up the combine.

After the trailer was unhooked, the combine was dragged by huge strap up on to the trailer.

Then the trailer is hooked back up to the semi. The ground was too soft, William pulled semi and all out of the field to the road.

So BGC was off to the shop.

The good Lord was smiling on us this day. It turned out a shaft to the hydraulic pump broke. The mechanics were able to fix it the next day.  BGC was running again the day after that. And, knock on wood, it is running great.

After two weeks or so, here is the Harvest Status Report
BigGreenCombine: no breakdowns.
Grain Bins: one fan has gone out
Elevators: The first one we have been hauling to is putting in a new dump pit (supposed to be finished weeks ago) is having electrical problems on and off.
Yields: Corn- Highest field was 178 bu/a, Lowest field was 67 bu/a
            Beans- Haven’t started yet. Will start after the next rains coming in.
Rain: 3.7 in. for Sept.
Cattle: One cow (Mable) escaped the pasture and went for a stroll down the road. Put a new solar fencer on the electric fence. William put some round bales in to keep everyone happy.