The King Corn and Captain Kirk

WOW! Has it really been a couple months since I posted anything here?  I guess I've gotten busy and distracted and then just out of the practice.  I'll have to improve a bit.

So what has been happening? We finished harvest and fall tillage and are deep in to out mid-December "I really oughta's". You know, I ought to work on equipment, catch up the  books, get ready for Christmas, on and on. 

Oh, and I want to welcome any readers of the Christian Standard. Last month there was an article I had some problems with so I wrote a response.  I included the url for the farm website.  When CS published my response online it included a link to here.  So if you read "The King Corn and Captain Kirk" and my reply you may have decided to visit us here..Welcome!

Let's see, needs some pictures.  How about these I took today?

If you are on Facebook stop by the Bumpus Farm page and say howdy

Hello Amy from Cell One ...

Amy called as I was drilling wheat this afternoon.  I told her if she wanted to see what I was doing to look on the farm web site. Here is the tractor I was driving

I was pulling this

With it I can plant wheat 30 feet wide with every pass through the field.  This little box is my GPS unit with autosteer

It plugs in to a little antenna on the roof that reads signals from several satellites to determine its position.   This tractor is "auto-steer ready" which means I plug in a cable from the tractor to it, touch the button (see the green steering wheel in the lower right corner?) and it steers itself. I just fold up the steering wheel and let it go

Which frees me up to talk on by Blue Parrot headset through my iPhone

Make sense now?

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Something we are working on ...

I've had the URL www.BumpusFarms.info for as long as I've had www.BumpusFarms.us.  I just haven't done much with it.  I started working on it in 2011 on a different site with different purposes. It kind of got shoved on the back burner and ignored.

Wordpress operates a bit different than blogspot.  I think it may offer a few more options if I can figure them out. I'm hoping to do more with it, so kind of keep an eye on it and see what develops

Bean Harvest has started ... FINALLY !

Some years we are done with all beans but double crop by now.  We have been driving around looking ... and looking ... and all the sudden WOW ! Those changed overnight! So we started Wednesday afternoon.

First problem: We were expecting to go to milo before beans. So we had to make some combine and head adjustments and clean out the corn from the combine.  Milo screens out well in processing.  Corn does not. So I got up in the combine with a leaf blower and a shop vac and cleaned for a while.

We finally got to the field. Beans ranged from 12.3% to "boy those are green" in the same field.

Once we got the field done we had a new problem.  Almost all our beans are seed production. That means we need to put them in a bin. The problem is we haven't actually used our new toy, yet. Since seed beans are very quality sensitive there is a benefit to using a conveyor instead of an auger. But you can't dump a hopper bottom in our conveyor. This Spring I talked to Chris PIne at Yargus Manufacturing (LAYCO if you're an old guy like me)  and bought a reconditioned unloader. 

We were a bit different than their usual customer.  We wanted hydraulic drive instead of electric.  They said if we would run the hoses that was no problem. So after a trip to see Steve Shawler at West Union Hydraulics last week we were ready to go.

 

It's a bit of a hassle, because you have to pull the truck up and then roll the unloader under it.

But it works and was about $10,000 less than a drive over.  So we have beans in the bin and the only auger that touched them was in the combine.

Now we are all ready to go and ... yep, beans are still too green everywhere else.

Been making water

OK, just relocating water. Finally got the well drilled,

 pipe run,

wires connected and lines flushed

to make the new irrigator at Neal's work.

Found a few quality control issues.  Looks to us like this one part is drilled wrong because all three towers have the same problem.  The bolt just won't fit!

But we got something to work. We towed it to the other riser

 and made sure that Yes, it DOES clear the bins.

5 feet is just as good as 50, right?

Also ordered a new propane fueled engine for the Drake Place irrigator.  The John Deere has in excess of 10,000 hours (we don't know for certain.  The hour meter quit and Dad put in an electric one which shows over 9,000 hours) and is developing a few issues.  We felt like it was time to replace the turbo exhaust elbow last winter

 And recently discovered the Rockford PTO is running on borrowed time.

I found that when I pulled a wire loop out of a drain hole in the PTO one morning.  This came out.

After talking to a couple Deere Service Managers I guess it isn't that important.  The one with the most irrigator experience knew exactly what it was and where it went and told me I could safely run without it.  He also gave me an idea of what I might be looking at in the near future.  We (OK, I) decided it may be best to look into a replacement engine.  We can put this one in the corner as a spare.

I've been pondering on a propane fueled engine quite a while.  The engine is cheaper to buy and cheaper to use.  If the numbers can be believed the savings in fuel cost should pay for it in 2-3 years.  Right now there is some PERC (propane advocacy group) money offering an incentive to buy a propane engine. Aman and I talked a long time with the rep at the Farm Progress Show.  The next day I  called me dealer and ordered a GM 5.7 liter from Husker Power Products.

But I bet it won't sound as sweet as Louie Venard's old 318 Chrysler with straight pipes did.

Pickup ttrucks

I traded trucks Monday. Yes, the Quad Cab has left the premises

It has been replaced by a blue (gasp!) Chevy (gasp!) one ton flatbed. It meets our current needs better, has 70,000 fewer miles, and the trade involved very little cash!

 

Yes, it looks considerably like the 94 pickup the '01 replaced. Unbelievable, this is the only photo I can find of that truck.  Gotta be another one someplace.

And that included the white flatbed that was Aman's. Well, I did find the front of it in a reunion photo

Let's see what other pickup photos I can find. Of course there is the 550.

and the Jeep

 

and I did find a sort of picture of the green 6X6

 

 and the Toyota

I probably have more, but not easily accessible.

I got to pondering on trucks I've owned. I'm not very brand loyal. If I haven't missed one this makes 5 Chevy's, 4 Dodges, 6 Ford's, 1 GMC, and 1 Toyota.   None were new.  At least 8 of those had over 100,000 when I bought them. 3 were dually's, 3 were flatbeds, 3 had service beds. 1 was a work van.  5 were red, 6 were blue, 2 were green, 2 were white, and I'm not sure what color to call the Toyota.  Gray/black/sort of?

I'd kind of like to one day own a new truck. Came close this summer  Bought Sue a new car.

Which is a good thing. One of my personal goals is for Sue's car to always be newer than my truck. I'd say with my new 1994 Chevy I might have some bonus years stored away.

Making it rain

It's that time of year

One of the joys of irrigating is playing in the COLD water. This wasn't one of ours but it was a neighbor's.  I just had to borrow Kaycee's picture, it was too good. 

I prefer not to.  If you look closely you may see water is coming out places it shouldn't.  Had to climb up and tighten some hose clamps.

Making a 50 foot deep post hole at Neal's ..  and it leaks water in the bottom!

The pipe they are installing is this one

 There are enough slots to flow 1500 GPM

 You dig a hole you have to fill it up.  They poured gravel up to above the slots then sealed it with concrete.  Sorry, no pictures of that.  The cement truck got lost and I got tired of waiting.

It's August already? Really?

It can't be August.  In my mind it ought to be mid-June.  But I know better than that, it was July 4th just yesterday. So .. what has been happening since then? Finished wheat, got the doublecrop beans all planted, hauled out the wheat we put in the bin.

Yes, I know, I am philosophically opposed to putting wheat in the bin. Actually it's less philosophy and more not wanting to run a sweep auger in a bin in summer. But we did and it worked out well.

Umm, if I'm on the bin roof and Aman is spotting the truck ... that means Pup is driving it!  I'm not sure my heart is up to this either. Putting wheat in the bin was a great idea this year.  We kept the combine going and we actually made money on it.  Between the drying and handling it picked up test weight.  I've heard this from other folks, that handling wheat raises test weight. I don't understand it, I just take their 40 cents and smile.  Looks good going in the truck

Irrigating has been a lot different than last year.  We're just getting started now. Had a valve failure in the pipeline,

but a call and quick trip to Carlisle had us going again

We asked a different irrigator service guy to replace them over a year ago.  I guess he's been too busy. Did something else out of normal for us.  Had some hay baled.  I put it under roof before it got wet.  Called a friend who called an uncle.  I had it sold by dark.

spraying is caught up, roads are mowed, started the irrigators up, Beck's Field Show at Neoga is next Thursday ... wait a minute, that's in August.  By the time I get my head to understanding it's August we'll be cutting milo