My major accomplishment of the week

It's been one of those spinning your wheels kind of weeks.  I knew starting out it would be a short one, because this is reunion week.  We have a big family reunion every year.  A multi-day travel some distance reunion.  We hold it on the farm my Great-Grandfather's lived on near Mt Vernon, Illinois.

Yes, I know we are unusual.

Getting together for several days with folks you sometimes barely know is sometimes interesting.  And because of it I knew this week we would be pushed to accomplish much.  Monday we caught up with some road mowing.  We've gotten behind on that a bit for several reasons.  The big one has been temperature.  In an air conditioned cab it is really kind of enjoyable. But the blacktop roads have been so hot we felt it was had on the road surface driving tractors around if the need really wasn't urgent.

Monday we got a chance to catch up a little.  Aman mowed the roads on the Prust ground west of Mill Creek.  I mowed the lanes east of Mill Creek and Wilderness road and along the highway and around the Sycamore field with the Allis.   Well, until I broke something. I don't think I have run the Allis and old Bush Hog a full afternoon for years that I didn't break something on it.  Tuesday evening I used the M and the sickle bar to touch up a few places across from the Silver Moon

Tuesday we had some other things to do, changing oil in irrigation engines, things like that.  I had cell phone problems, so I had to go to the phone store.  Since I was going to Casey anyway I decided to look at trading my Mule ...

No, not a floppy eared 4 legged animal. My 2011 Kawasaki Mule XC610

It is a great tool. We really tried it out last Saturday going back to an irrigator pivot after a 4" rain.  I do not think I could have walked to it.  We just turned on the front wheels and drove through the mud and water with no problem. But it is slow.  23 MPH top speed.  Working on irrigators a little more speed would be nice. The John Deere dealer had traded for a 2009 Kawasaki Teryx.  It looks like this only it was blue

Twice the engine mine has, fuel injection instead of a carburetor, bucket seats, fancy wheels, nice ...

When I first started taking to Jerry (the salesman) about it he encouraged me to come drive it.  I said "Aww Jerry, I've got a Mule, I've been around 2, 3, and 4 wheelers for over 40 years.  I don't need to drive it."  He still wanted me to come drive it.  Since I was going to Casey to the phone store, and wanted to take the Ford to a car wash anyway, I loaded my Mule and went to Casey.

I now know why Jerry wanted me to drive it first.  Quoting a magazine review of this thing: "I still cannot believe the ability of these units."  It is just a bit scary. 

I think if it were just Aman and I driving it would have been OK.  But about the first time Sue got in it to do some work in the yard, hit the throttle and it ran off in the pond I'd be in trouble.  And Sunday evening after the Church fishing tournament at our pond

I let a couple of my Jr High kids use the Mule to pick up and transport some things.  I would not have let them behind the wheel of the Teryx

Another potential difficulty was engine access. I know it has one, I just never saw it. One review says: "Hood does not open without using screwdriver. Access to engine is a pain. Lots of push pins and screws."

 So I went and got my phone fixed, washed the truck, and came home.

As for farming, the rest of the week has been pretty much a bust.  That's OK, we needed a break.  But I have a feeling we'll pay for it next week.  My ToDo list is already over a page long.  

So my major accomplishment this week was NOT buying a Mule.

Sounds good to me ....

You're doing WHAT ?

Growing seed corn causes one to do unusual things.  For instance, we planted at nearly 40,000 population (that's at least 1/3 more than normal for most folks around here) and put a 13th row on the planter to do it

To plant the desired pattern of 1 pollinator (male) row and 4 seed producing rows (female) with a 12 row planter you have 2 choices.  You can either plant the male rows separately or add a 13th row.  The 13th row is set up to plant half the desired population because when you turn around and come back through the field it is replanting on the row it just planted. It gives a pattern like this:

FMMMMFMMMMFMMMMF

That is great .... except they are not going to harvest the seed with a 4 row picker. So after detasseling is done and pollination is finished a contractor comes through and destroys the male rows.  We used to do it ourselves, but the companies we have been growing for the last few years would rather do it themselves.  So we sold our old Hagie Ag Tractor we used to knock down and destroy the male rows.

It had reached the point it wasn't profitable to use.  With current fuel prices it cost $20 an hour just for fuel.  We just let the seed company take care of it.

Yes, there is a lot of grass in the field. I took this from on top of the irrigator pivot.  There is an area around the pivot you can't plant, and an open spot with plenty of water is a great place for fall panicum and foxtail.  Now I can come in and spot spray some Roundup and clean it up.

So, we planted the half the male corn, then came back a few days later and planted the rest of the male and all the female.  We've cultivated

and ran the aerator through it. 

It's been sprayed

Actually, sprayed several times.

and detasseled

 and the male rows knocked down

And will be harvested around 30% moisture, picked on the ear. .

It is an interesting crop

It's been a ride so far ...

I realized it has been a couple weeks since I posted anything.  What can you do in a couple weeks?You can replace your cell phone because the old one has gotten flaky.  You can finish spraying.

You can enjoy 100 degree days

You can spend a week in VBS. 

Actually you can do the 100 degree thing while doing the others.  You can work down horseweeds taller than the hood of the tractor contract planting wildlife food plots

Talk about bringing back memories of river bottom farming!

And let's not forget irrigators and mowing roads and getting the yard ready for a church fishing tournament / cookout.  Actually, we're kind of waiting to to survey the situation this morning on that one.  We had nearly 3 inches of rain last night and I'm not sure what the pond and back yard will look like by tomorrow.  I have a feeling my plans to burn the brush pile for a weiner roast are going to need changed.  I still have one irrigator running because it is going to require the 4WD Mule to get to it 

 and I chose not to do that in the rain and in the dark with lightning popping all around

Oh, and the big happening since last time is the passing of Aunt Jean.

Yeah, we will be feeling that for a long time.  Even though she has not been an active part of the farm a long time she was and always will be a part of it

I'm Baaaaacccckkk ......

Frontier DSL was a very bad thing to say for a couple weeks around here unless you wanted to be scowled at.  I was a bit hard to get along with.  Sue was so tired of hearing about it you REALLY didn't want to mention it around her.  But they have it fixed and working like it should and life is wonderful and the grass is green and the sky is blue.

So after being unable to post for two weeks what do I start with?

I have thoughts and pictures and ideas ... but I'll start with a temptation.  Something I don't need and won't buy, but at times I wish I had a bit more spare money and was willing to spend it.  A guy in SE Iowa has a tractor listed online for sale.  A 1964 IH 806 diesel with clamshell fenders

If you know our family farming history you know Dad's first "big" tractor was just like this.  A neighbor had decided he wasn't able to continue farming and Dad bought the tractor and some other equipment.  I don't know what happened to it.  My guess is it was traded for a 1456, but I really don't know.  And I imagine if I owned one I would be a lot less sentimental.  But it's kind of like Ivan's M

 or Gramp's 560

 I just kind of wish I had it.  Not quite the same because I really doubt it is The One.  Now if I could find the right 806 and could prove it I'd be a lot more interested.

Cutting wheat ... quickly and slowly both

We got rolling in wheat this week, then ground to a stop.

We cut one field we know from experience took just about all day with the old combine. Aman pulled in the field at 12:55.  At 4:55 we had the head on the trailer and started to the next field.

We're mostly done.  Everything left is just north of town.  But we had to wait on the neighbors to get theirs cut so we could cross them with the combine and three other little fields are too wet and getting greener.

 

Corn is growing good, except where there is too much water.  Not too much I can do about it.  You can barely walk across the field right now.

Did some irrigator maintenance, checking tire pressure and gearboxes.  I've got a few tires starting to concern me

The bad part is Gary Bonesteel isn't in the business any more. The last tires we had replaced Gary replaced every tire on a 1300 foot system by himself in a morning and had time for a coffee break and still be back at the shop by noon.

It's June! cut wheat, cultivate, plant beans ... all at the same time

Yes, I said cultivate.  I realize some consider that a 4 letter word.

We (OK, Aman) ran through one of the seed fields Tuesday morning.  I think he was convinced I was nuts. The corn was almost to tall to cultivate. The ground was wet enough to pick up on the tractor tires.  The only thing out there were some grassy spots and some little bitty just emerged weeds.  But those weeds were either tea weed or button weed. Yes, there was some damage where the guy driving the planter didn't get the second pass right on top of the first pass.  But I think it was worth it.

Once Aman got started and I got oil back in the irrigator engine and got it moved I went back to the shed to hook up the Bush Hog and mow roads (I think it is one of the things Aman dislikes even more than cultivating).  I looked south and saw ... a combine making dust?  Then I saw another combine head down the road.  So I got the green beast out and cut a sample.  17.1%  I'd looked at RADAR and the weather forecast before leaving the house and expected to be rained out by then.  So I called home and had Sue check for me.

Clear. 

So ... do we cut or wait?

I took the 10 wheelers to the field and by that time Aman was finished.  We ate lunch, came back a little after 1:00 and ... still 17%. Oh, and the elevator management informed us they  couldn't take anything over 16.5%

I decided we should cut wheat, so Aman took off that way, I took the semi to the field and then started getting a bin ready and setting an auger.  I got that done about the time Aman called to tell me 2 trucks were full.  Came back to the field, took the semi to the elevator to check moisture ... and it was 15.8%.  So I dumped in the elevator.

I think we need to do some tweeking on our grain handling.  Staying ahead of this combine in corn is going to be impossible the way we have been doing it.  We cut 50 acres or better by 5 PM when the sky fell.  We had a half inch of rain in about 10 minutes.

Needless to say, I don't expect to cut wheat Wednesday.

But that is OK, because Wednesday we can try and figure out why the semi setting the yard at the shed won't start.  And why the Ford 10 wheeler won't run.  Or we could re-wire the 560 that caught fire and burned all the wiring up. And I have to replace the antenna cable on the GPS unit on the spray tractor.

Job security.

Did you get a release to put that on YouTube?

Ahhhh!  The joys of river bottom farming. Aman got the bean plot planted. We planted as much of the ground the river affected as we could yesterday. Still too wet underneath on about 60 acres. Most of it you could drive the tractor across. But when you raise your implement the weight pushes the wheels through the crust and into the mud. I stuck a shovel in the ground. For 3 inches it was hard, dry dirt. At 6 inches you could squeeze water out of it!

I watched the neighbor come down the road with his 40 ft interplant planter and pull in across the road from me.  I thought "Oh, this won't be pretty". His first pass he made it 2/3 of the way through the field and it sank.  He didn't get stuck, he sank it.

Aman came by about then and talked with him. He seemed in a pretty good mood for having  40 ft of planter and front wheel assist tractor buried to the planter frame.    I told Aman later he should have asked for a release to put the video on YouTube.  He said we should have Mom pop some popcorn and take a couple lawnchairs down to watch.

Funny thing is, they went and got a big tractor with lots of wide tires, pulled it out, and he didn't have any more problems.

It's like I mentioned, I could drive the tractor almost anyplace in the field, but the transport wheels on the implement had so much weight on them they pushed through the crust and sank in the mud. The river was down to 12 feet then bounced up to 14.   It's 12 feet again and supposed to be dropping.  Maybe someday we can plant the rest.  I don't know if we will get done planting or just quit.