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The corn crop is slowly drying down in the field.  Many Farmers have gone ahead and harvested theirs, but we have just been doing enough to feed pigs.  As long as the snow doesn’t get too deep, the combine can keep going without much trouble.  Off to try a little bit again this afternoon, and if it is dry enough, we may soon be able to go ahead and get a few fields done!

So, while I was at the meat marketing workshop, Dad was on chore duty.  And as luck would have it, the feed wagon picked that day to go wonky and decide not to unload.  After he spent some time taking a few things apart, and not being able to find anything wrong, he backed the cart up to the auger and shoveled out over a ton of feed so he could get the pigs fed.  I didn’t ask him how long it took, but I bet his ‘slow and steady’ pace was probably at least as fast as I would have been able to do it!  Not bad for an old guy eh!!

Maybe that’s what keeps him young?

When I got home, I took apart the gearbox, and couldn’t find much wrong either.  But we ended up spacing the gears a little tighter, and it unloaded the next time.  I wonder how long it will last…

They were calling for no rain until Wed, so  that half a field that we had left to plow looked like it might get done.  It is a pretty wet field at the best of times, and has a bit of a natural water course that goes through it when it is really wet, so we were just lifting the plow when we crossed through the water and left the water course in grass/hay.  This however left marks crossing it, and it was pooling in every track.  So I thought I would just drive the length of the water course ( which has a few inches of water flowing through it) and leave tracks the other way.  Worked like a charm until I got to the far end and decided to drive just out of the field.  When I went to back up, the tractor wheels spun.  After going forward and back again, I was a little farther, but a lot deeper too!  A couple more forward and back’s and I knew I wasn’t getting out on my own.

A call to Mom to come get me was lucky enough to find her at home, and back came Dad and I with the other tractor and a chain.  By the time we got back to the stuck tractor and plow, the mud that had been up to the step of the tractor, was now up to the platform!  Without a long enough chain to really get out onto solid ground, and less than great tires on the tractor, we couldn’t seem to pull it out!

Take two involved borrowing Willowtree’s brand new 4wd tractor, and getting a really long chain.  Luckily the brand new tractor had lots of lights on it, because by now it was getting dark.  Several tugs one way, and a few more the other, with the 4×4 on and the differential lock on, and we finally got it to un-suction out of the hole and back out to solid ground on the field. 

Needless to say, the field didn’t get finished that day.  And then it rained (drizzled really) the next morning, but since it wasn’t actually raining after lunch, I went back to see how much more I could do.  And I got it done!  I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went, and now we can put the plow away.  All we have left is corn ground, and the corn isn’t off yet! (and we use a disk, not a plow,  on it)

The Farm Fuel tanks have always had hand pumps on them for filling the tractors, it’s a good arm workout!  But the combine has a big tank on it (300-400 pumps, which is more than a good workout!?), as well as the John Deere we got a couple of years ago.  So when the hand pump started leaking fairly significantly, we saw a sale on an electric one at good ol’ TSC store.  We had to get a long cord to run it, but we can now fill up without the work out.

It’s the little things in life that make you really happy!

All that nice weather let us get spread all the liquid manure we wanted to, and finish working it in before it rained.  (It doesn’t smell once it is worked in!)  We now just have part of a field to finish with solid manure, and another part of a field to finish plowing.  After that, all that is left is all the corn to harvest.  That is looking like a January project, since it is still over 30% moisture!

It looks like we might get an entire week of Sunshine!  Hard to believe after the summer and fall we’ve had so far.  We were finally able to get my neighbour’s (Willowtree) soybeans finished harvesting on Monday.  Wouldn’t have quite gotten finished if Rod himself hadn’t driven the Combine while I went home for an hour to ship pigs.  Don’t know if he’d done that much before or not, but the Combine was still in one piece when I got back!

Did a couple of loads of corn for them as well yesterday.  They wanted to get the field plowed this fall, so they could plant strawberries there in the spring.  The corn is still quite wet.  This was 40% moisture, so the rest of the field will have to wait till the Jan-Feb.

Off to get some more of the “smelly stuff” spread while this beautiful dry weather makes it easier!

The weather certainly hasn’t been cooperating!  Lots of drizzly damp days haven’t helped get any more soybeans harvested.  This morning the sun is shining, so we’ll hope that lasts!

Did one round of Corn last week , (in the drizzle), just to try and stretch out the dry corn feed we have.  It was over 35% moisture, (15% is considered dry) so it has a long way to go to dry down…  Sun would help that too!

Last week saw us get a couple of fields of Soybeans harvested.  We usually plant winter wheat after the beans are off, and it is always a rush to try and get the wheat planted in good time.  This year we had planned on putting manure on before we planted, after we combined the beans, and because it is such a late year, that made it particularly rushed!  But Kevin spent the day last Saturday spreading liquid on one field, while Grandpa was spreading solid manure on the other, and I was combining Willowtree’s one soybean field so he could get them planted too. 

We all managed to get the wheat planted before the drizzle started on Wed.  Now all we need is some sun so we can finish harvesting the rest of the soybeans.  This week’s weather report doesn’t look real promising! (but they’ve been wrong before!)

Started Corn Silage at Cousin Bob’s the last week of September.  That’s a good 2 weeks later than usual.  Of course we couldn’t start till the middle of the week ’cause it was raining.  We got 2 good days in, and then worked through the drizzle all Friday afternoon to finish the first field.  And we thought that would be the hardest part.

Saturday had a little hiccup in that one wagon got a flat tire.  No problem Bob has a couple spares.

Then Monday Morning saw the same wagon get a split rim. (the wheel came right off)  Jacking up full wagons from right on the ground is a bit of a trick, but we were going again by early afternoon.  At this point, I’m thinking “at least it isn’t my wagon that broke down!”  But a few loads later, and I actually saw the wagon tire blow on my wagon.  It was a nice little poof cloud to go with a rather earth shattering bang.  At this point we are out of spares, and I had to go track down a new tire. (it only took two different dealers to find one). This time it was in the field, where the jack sunk in to the ground instead of lifting the wagon.  By the time I got back with the new tire, Bob and Ted had dug out the wheel.  After a few wacked knuckles we had a new tire on the rim, but again, trying to jack the wagon up a little more to get the fully inflated tire on succeded only in shoving several more blocks further into the ground.  After digging half way to china, we got the wheel on, and suprisingly, the tractor was able to pull the wagon out of the hole without too much trouble. (it was still on the block ’cause we couldn’t jack it to get it off, so maybe that helped!?)  And by then the day was over!

So the next day started out with a gathering chain coming off of the forage harvester.  It is a secondary one, that isn’t that necessary, so we just kept going without it.  We made it to the middle of the afternoon, before the forage harvester blower pan blew a hole.  Attempts to weld a patch on it only succeded in burning new holes through the worn thin metal.  It being to late in the day to order a new one for the next day, we had to wait till Thursday morning for parts.  Luckily it was raining Wed. anyway, so we didn’t feel as bad.  Thursday was beautiful and sunny, and we spent till 2:00 in the shade of the forage harvester trying to get the friggin’ tight-fitting-so-it-doesn’t-leak pan up and then down and then up into place.

But alas, we weren’t out of the woods yet.  Turns out that secondary gathering chain, actually doubled as the drive chain for one of the knives.  So now that things were wetter, the harvester wasn’t working without it. 

That put us to Saturday of Thanksgiving, when we were able to get the new chain and get it on by noon, and then I had to go to the Ptbo. family due, leaving Dad, Bob and Ted to finish the silo, a full 10 days after we started. (it usually takes 4-5)

These are the sort of things that make you appreciate it when things go well!