Big Green Combine

We finished harvesting the 21st of October.  Actually one of the earlier finishes for us.  Only two real breakdowns with the combine and they were small ones. One of the hose clamps on the air inlet pipe on the turbocharger broke. The other was a drive chain on the corn head.  Semi’s were a problem early on, but the old 99 International once it was running ran great.

Oh by the way, this is Judi’s lessor half posting this, she is still trying to get caught up from being part of ” #occupycombine in #harvest11 “.  She also has been helping me with fieldwork for next year’s crop. We did get one of our new wells hooked up to the house.  Great to have “enough” water.  We also added to the kids show string of heifers this last weekend, more on those girls later.

She is really a great combine operator and she does look for the last row of corn or soybeans every year.  Found it two Fridays ago.  I took her out to our favorite Italian restaurant last week. We celebrated and then went home and went back to work.  She is just really busy right now, getting caught up with the kids and house stuff and computer stuff, and well the life of a farm wife/ farmer.

She would  say she is just glad it is over for this year.

I am at the point in harvest where the days are all running together. William keeps talking about “when we get done with this field, we’ll go to that field. Then we’ll switch to beans and haul the bean head to another field.” I hold up my palm and say talk to the hand. (not really) But I did say, “Whoa, stop. It’s going to be a few days before we are done in the current field. A million things could go wrong in that time changing everything. So I’m not listening.” He’s counting loads and acres left. I’m just driving ’til I run out of fields. Different mindsets to the same end.

So the harvest update is fairly redundant. I have lost track of how many days we’ve been in corn. I’m seeing rows of corn plants being shoved into a feeder house in my sleep. I’m not complaining really. As long as the combine and trucks are running, we are getting closer to the prize.

The combine did lose some power today. William thought it may be the fuel filter, since we just used the transfer tank for the first time in awhile. But Russel across the road, who used to be a red IH dealer says the air filters need replaced. He was right. I took out the filter and it was crammed with dust. We’ll replace both sets of filters tomorrow. Tomorrow more corn.

We started planting corn this year on April 10. Were able to go for a few days, planting the fields that had wet spots. We knew if it started raining it would be a long time before we could get into them. Then it rained and rained and rained. Never lacking for something to do, we worked on cattle fence and regular repairs. We can never plan on anything because “it might dry out tomorrow and be back in the field”. But we kept waiting because it kept raining. Earlier this week we took a video of the field we first planted right after another rain. That field is nothing to brag about. The stand is uneven and puny mostly from lack of sun and warm weather.

Wednesday we were finally able to get into the fields. That day we planted 180 acres. Then yesterday we got 100 acres in before it rained again. Within 4 more days we could be finished. That is not including replanting the drowned out areas.

This is 4 years in a row that we have had major planting delays because of rain. I am hoping this is not a new normal weather pattern. I know that we are not the only farmers in this situation. There are whole regions of the US still in limbo, chomping at the bit to put seed in the ground. Many have yet to even start. But if farming were easy (or cheap) everyone would be doing it.

How are things progressing around your parts?

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FarmAndRanchCountry.com is my husband’s website for his farm podcasts.