Between the River Hills & the River Bottom

[cliftonbros89]

Here I thought JD sold stuff on parts availability...same with CAT

It’s getting pretty crazy with any place these days

 

[cliftonbros89]

Summer of '92 I helped my grandfather combine his 40-acre wheat field there in southern MO. The dust was terrible.
We put it in a cart and he hauled it to the elevator using his John Deere 60 tractor. Came back with around $9000 cash in his pocket, which was a lot for a young boy to see.

It was a combine just like this one.

Anyways, enjoy reading about your trials and tribulations. Here's to a good harvest.

Wheat isn’t nearly as dirty as corn and beans are.

Don’t see many of those combines around any place these days. See a few that are just a few models after that one though.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Well yesterday we finally got started on wheat.

Wasn’t exactly completely dry yet. But there’s several chances of rain by the weekend into next week so hopefully we can beat that.

Dad ran the combine while I loaded trucks with the grain cart, hauled some off, when I wasn’t doing that I was mowing around the edges of the fields.

I mowed until dark.
Dad was able to combine til dark so we had both trucks, the cart, and the combine all loaded for the morning.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Dad and I each hauled a truck load off this morning. My uncle said he would run the combine today so dad could get things ready to start planting beans behind the wheat.

I ran the trucks and grain cart again today.
Those Union Pacific guys in Illinois really like blocking the roads a lot.

Dad had to wait on some more seed to be delivered. I’d hauled some more trucks off. Elevator closed at 5. So after that we just made sure to get the trucks loaded for tomorrow.

That meant I had some time to get back to mowing. Wasn’t mowing long and BAM!

U-joint blew apart on the main shaft for the brush hog. Looks as though the one side of bearing wasn’t getting grease for some reason. Got hot enough and blew apart. Of corse it couldn’t have just been the bearing that went out, which I had on hand at the shop. It also had to busted up the end of the shaft too.

About 5 years ago we had to replace that whole shaft. The old one was busted up. They had an A&I brand one available for about half the cost of the Deere one. We soon found out why, it probably only weighed half as much as the Deere shaft, and didn’t last half as long as the Deere shaft. Yeah JD stuff can be stupid overpriced, but sometimes, you get what you pay for. Looking at the rest of the shaft it’s pretty much worn out (or close enough to it) that we may as well replace the whole shaft again.

But we at least finished up with that farm this evening.


110 acres done. 110 more to go.

Dad planted a little after dark. I took the broken PTO shaft apart. Didn’t have any ends at the shop. So I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing with that yet. Checked on some of the cattle and fed some mineral after dark. Also, had to drop a tool off to a guy before I called it a day.

Grain market is still crazy, up and down, and not just a few cent here and there anymore. It’s ridiculous.

Rain chances are going back and forth from Friday til next Friday. Check the weather apps in the morning and it’s a 30% chance for a few days. Check it by noon and it’s a 30% chance every day. Check it in the evening and it’s a 40-50% chance every other day with a 30% chance on the other days. I just know when we’ve had 60-90% chance of rain we don’t get a drop. Some it’ll likely be the 30-40% chance days we’ll have to watch for. Majority of the year I don’t take a rain chance serious til it’s at least 50-60%. But this time of year you never know.

 

[jollygreengiant]

That's wheat harvest weather for you. It won't rain for weeks beforehand but as soon as the combines start rolling you'll be dodging showers every day.

How is the wheat running? Soft red?

 

[cliftonbros89]

That's wheat harvest weather for you. It won't rain for weeks beforehand but as soon as the combines start rolling you'll be dodging showers every day.

How is the wheat running? Soft red?

It’s exactly right. I don’t want it to not rain. Honestly we could use a couple good gentle rains. Things are starting to get dry. The pastures were looking good a few weeks ago. But they’re even starting to turn a little bit.

I’ve got one more load to haul off from the first farm. I’m going to figure things up and see how well it made after. It doesn’t seem to be doing bad, other than it hasn’t been completely dry yet. But it’s no record breaker by any means. We sprayed it with fungicide. So it seems to be fair quality, other than moisture, test weight and everything has been good. No serious damage, none of that evil “pink mold”.

yep. Soft red wheat.

 

[ambenz]

You are lucky you were able to harvest your crop, my cousin Marcia near Fullerton. Nebraska got hit bad on Tuesday.
"Last evening, started hailing at 9:12 til about 9:30 Got 2 inches of hard rain and very high winds with it. Could not see a thing, just white like in a hurricane, came from the northwest and went south .... this came up real suddenly."
Lost a lot of beans and corn...they have some insurance....

 

[captain14]

ambenz,

How many acres did they loose?

Can Anything be planted now to do something for this growing season?

 

[ambenz]

I asked, just waiting for a reply.
Update: 150 Acres were lost, total devestation, waiting for agronomist recommendations about replanting.

 

[Sifan]

With irrigation, their options are better. Should be able to plant beans or milo but will have to double check compatibility with chemicals they put on corn.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I asked, just waiting for a reply.
Update: 150 Acres were lost, total devestation, waiting for agronomist recommendations about replanting.

Wow! That’s quite a bit of damage. That’s not good. Especially, getting into summer like this.

I’ve heard talks of drought in places. But I hadn’t heard of any major storm damage like that.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Back to it today. Hauled off a few loads. Got things moved to another farm. Got my uncle started in the combine. Dad got started with the planter.

Yesterday when we took the platform off of the combine I noticed this.

A spring was missing from this slip clutch. This shaft drives the auger on the platform. This morning I call the dealer for the spring and a bushing that goes on the bolt. But, naturally, they didn’t have it.
So we tried to get started anyway.

It was a cloudy day all day so the wheat was a little tough to cut today. While on the back from hauling off wheat I got a call from my uncle. He said the the auger was slipping.

He always has to make things a pain. He always insist on having his truck where ever we are. But he has no tools or anything else in his truck anymore. So I had to take the semi to the shop to go get my truck. But I had to go try and find a spring anyway.

side note: my uncle doesn’t understand the readiness and preparedness and how much better it is to have my truck at the field. No I don’t plan on things breaking, but obviously they do so why not minimize your down time. Example. Now I didn’t have the bearing yesterday, but had the shaft on the brush hog not busted yesterday, the bearing would’ve been the only thing keeping me from fixing it. I had everything to take it apart and put the new one on.


But this is an example of why it’s not necessarily a bad idea to hold on to random parts off of things that are taken apart or scraped. Also why it doesn’t hurt to maybe pick up a few random things here and there.

Here is an example of why it doesn’t hurt to hang on to small bags that parts arrive in. They’re handy to throw stuff in and go.

So we got a spring on it. Smaller. But a spring regardless. Hey, it got us by for today. At least til the sun started going down and the wheat toughened up again. I’m assuming my uncle didn’t notice the nuts I had were lock nuts, unless he wanted it extra locked? He put it on there while I unloaded the cart, cuz he couldn’t even do that while he was waiting on me.
But we got a pretty good chunk knocked out today.

After the sun went down and the wheat was tough I got the tractor, cart and combine all greased up and ready to do it again tomorrow.

I’d also helped dad get moved from the other farm to where we were at today.

He managed to keep the planter going pretty good today. But he mentioned that the planter monitor had 2 times today that it was going crazy and wasn’t reading the information from the planter properly. Sounds like we’ll be making another call to the dealer.

One disadvantage to the rows all being on the back on the new planter. Dad found a spot where the straw built up in the gauge wheels and just continued to wad up in the big ball in between rows. He said it was the only time it’s happened so far. But it was in between several rows. But this spot was the worst. That’s a good way to make some bearings go out.

Spring for the platform should be in tomorrow, if I ever have a chance to get it. since the brush hog shaft was worn so much we decided to just replace it with a whole new one from Deere. One of the dealership locations had it in stock. But its too big for them drop off at the drop box in town. So we have to go pick it up. So who know when that will happen.

Markets were down again. Supposed to have a chance of rain tomorrow, possibly Saturday, better chance Sunday. We’ll see what it does. If we could have tomorrow through Sunday it would be plenty of time to finish combining wheat, bale the straw at the last farm, get it out of the field, plant the rest of the beans, and maybe even spray.

we’ll see what happens.

 

[captain14]

I bet your uncle just watches while you do the repairs? It’s just break time for him.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I bet your uncle just watches while you do the repairs? It’s just break time for him.

You bet! Except he did put those two lock nuts on that spring yesterday so I could unload the grain cart that he’d been sitting and staring at for a good half hour.

He thinks the combine is the most important. So it needs to keep moving at all times. But he never seems to remember if I fall behind because I’m doing everything else that he won’t be able to keep going anyway.

Yesterday evening I was trying to help dad get the planter moved and his truck and seed moved from one farm to the other. My uncle called complaining the 9500 was running warm. It’s a common thing 3/4 thru the day. We keep a Swiss broom by the radiator. Dust and debris get on the radiator and block it off. You shut it off, brush it off with the broom and you’re good for awhile. If you blow it out with the air hose or leaf blower once a day or at lease every other day it helps. I told him that the leaf blower was in my truck. It was too late to haul anymore wheat off fo the day. He had plenty of time to use the leaf blower on it.

But nope! He waited until I came back over an hour later and I had to do it. Story of my life.

 

[XJSuperman]

I've said it before and I'll say it again....I'm pretty sure your uncle is my uncle. Always has to be in control, even though he's really not, and has no problem sitting on his **** waiting for you to show up to do the job he should be doing.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I've said it before and I'll say it again....I'm pretty sure your uncle is my uncle. Always has to be in control, even though he's really not, and has no problem sitting on his **** waiting for you to show up to do the job he should be doing.

We must be the lucky ones! It’s constantly like that. Like you said. Gotta be in control. Also, he always knows the right way to do everything. But then just stands there and complains about everything.

 

[captain14]

Ah, he’s a Subject Matter Expert (SME). Those types are “always” called in to give “expert”
Advice on anything. And then Say afterwards if it didn’t work- “I didn’t think it would work like that”

 

[cliftonbros89]

Ah, he’s a Subject Matter Expert (SME). Those types are “always” called in to give “expert”
Advice on anything. And then Say afterwards if it didn’t work- “I didn’t think it would work like that”

You pretty much nailed it! There may be a chance we’re related. Or at least our uncles may be.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Friday was another full day. Got the planter ready to go for dad.

Hauled a few loads of wheat off. Made sure the grain cart, combine and planter all kept moving.

By around noon or so we finished at that farm and were ready to move the combine to the bottom for the last field.

We moved to the bottom field. My uncle got started. I hauled off another truck load. While in Illinois I saw some clouds in the sky. Then rain…I knew it was heading straight across the river which is where the combine was. Sure enough when I arrived it had rained. My uncle was sitting in the combine with a grumpy look on his face.

The rain didn’t really amount to anything. But it was just enough to toughen up the wheat and bring things to a stop for a few hours. So by the time dad had finished planting at the farm we were at. So we used that time to get the planter, auger wagon and pick-ups moved down the road.

After 5 the sun actually popped out and dried things enough to cut a little bit more wheat. At least enough to get one of the trucks loaded.

 

[cliftonbros89]

So any other rain that was moving our way once again broke apart before it made it to us. There were quite a few clouds Saturday but there was a good breeze all day long.

Luckily the elevator was open for part of the weekend. So I was able to haul the full truck off right away. With the wind we were able to get started cutting a little earlier too. We were going to round bale some straw to have for winter. So we moved the chopper on the combine. While I was waiting on trucks to be filled I ran the baler.

I’d bale some. Hauled a truck off. Bale some more.


By mid afternoon we finished with the wheat. I had just enough time to get the last truck load off before the elevator closed at 4. I hit the road with the truck and dad took over with the baler.

Dad finished up baling while I had mom taxi me back and forth to get all the equipment moved back. There was talk of more rain so I wanted to get everything moved to the shed.

We got things ready to go to move bales in case it didn’t rain a bunch. Sixty or 70 bales of straw would’ve been plenty for the winter time. But the straw was so heavy that we just round baled basically the whole field. It made 160 all together. Not sure what we’re going to do with it all. But we got it.

 

[cliftonbros89]

So, Saturday night we had just a small shower. It amounted to a few tenths in places. But at dad’s it was just enough to settle the gravel dust on the road for the morning.

Dad hauled bales with the 7230 and the big gooseneck trailer. I grouped up all the bales to make it easier and faster for him to load the trailer.After I gathered all of the bales up I hooked the 4020 to the other trailer to make the process a little faster. I saved him 2 trips, which was actually 3 trips for me. But regardless. He hauled while I hauled. So it saved him time.

We just stacked them all in a pyramid row for now. Like I said I’m not sure what we’ll do with it all.

So wheat is done and hauled off. Only 50 acres of beans left to plant. Then spray all the wheat bean fields of our own and what
we’re doing custom. Then we’ll pretty much have things wrapped up.

We always get wheat cut in June. But it’s not very often that we’re completely done with beans before the first of July. Spraying too.

Rain chances this week. We’ll see if we can get the spraying done and the last beans in the ground before it gets here. But we could definitely use some rain. Crops need it, pasture needs it too.

There’s been a lot of rain northwest of us. So much so that the river is going to make a major jump. It already rose quite a bit today. It’s set to crest at 31 foot, which will put a lot of the beans outside of the levee under water. But as of now it’s supposed to make a quick drop back down. If the river manages to drop back down, not only under 30 foot, but under 25 foot in less than a few days then the beans make be ok. We’ll see how it goes.

 

[XJSuperman]

Sell the excess straw east. Not much straw that way. Or contact your local DOT office and let them know you have straw for sale. Lots of highway construction projects needing it for seeding cover.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Sell the excess straw east. Not much straw that way. Or contact your local DOT office and let them know you have straw for sale. Lots of highway construction projects needing it for seeding cover.

We were considering seeing if we could sell at least half of it. I know certain places there’s a good market for the large square bales of straw. I don’t know if it would matter that these are round or not.

 

[XJSuperman]

We were considering seeing if we could sell at least half of it. I know certain places there’s a good market for the large square bales of straw. I don’t know if it would matter that these are round or not.

The highway guys like rounds because they sit in their shredder/spreaders and chew them up.

 

[welder57]

Love the farm stories, Glad things are working out for y'all. Be SAFE!!!

 

[Farmall450]

Good luck on the flooding. It's weird being adjacent to a big enough river that water upstream can end your week lol!

 

[cliftonbros89]

I know a guy who farms on the side that works for the state, he also buys tools from me. I’ll have to check with him about it.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Good luck on the flooding. It's weird being adjacent to a big enough river that water upstream can end your week lol!

Oh yeah. Big winter snow melts out west. Big rains up north of us. Some one decided to let water go from a reservoir somewhere. We see it. Makes a big difference.

I’m just happy we’re not further south. We have the Missouri River and the northern Mississippi to deal with. Down south the get that plus the Ohio added into the mix.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Love the farm stories, Glad things are working out for y'all. Be SAFE!!!

Thanks!

 

[Farmall450]

Oh yeah. Big winter snow melts out west. Big rains up north of us. Some one decided to let water go from a reservoir somewhere. We see it. Makes a big difference.

I’m just happy we’re not further south. We have the Missouri River and the northern Mississippi to deal with. Down south the get that plus the Ohio added into the mix.

Yeah that's crazy to think of.

 

[DennisK]

When planting beans that late June, do you plant determinate or indeterminate?

 

[Toothaker]

When planting beans that late June, do you plant determinate or indeterminate?

Thanks, Dennis! The things I learn around here. I had to Google that.

 

[cliftonbros89]

When planting beans that late June, do you plant determinate or indeterminate?

I suppose you’d say indeterminate, but that’s essentially everything we plant. Like this year we had anything from a 3-8 to a 4-6. But since we typically book majority of our seed months in advance, we got what we got. Planting beans in late June isn’t uncommon around here by any means. So it’s not really something we worry about.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Yeah that's crazy to think of.

All that water has to go somewhere. If it runs down hill it goes to a creek or stream that runs to something bigger. That goes into a river, possibly into another river, into the Mississippi and into the gulf.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Let’s catch up here. This past week was a pretty aggravating one. For starters the river got to just about where they said it would. But it’s stayed up longer than predicted.

Over half of the beans outside of the levee are completely submerged.

On Monday I got things set for dad to get the wheat fields sprayed. In the meantime I needed to get the last field, where we made all the straw planted. Got started and at the end of the field I managed to find a nice wet spot, just wet enough. How? I’m not sure, we haven’t had enough rain for it to be that wet. But I’m guessing maybe it’s from seep water from the river.

Right as I lifted the planter up to try to back up I knew I was making a mistake right as I grabbed the lever. That damn heavy thing sank, then of corse shifted the weight into the tractor and that tractor sank too. Running down hill, planter up, in the 4440 with a planter, there’s no chance of getting out unless it’s pulled.

But no one was around. I drove the 4440 from the shop. The only option I had was to walk from there to our bottom shed and get the 8400. Walked across a bean field and down the gravel road. It took me 40 minutes to get to the 8400. But then I had no chain. So I drove up to the shop, grabbed a chain, back down to the 4440. I put the 4440 in neutral, hooked up the chain and pulled it out of there. Parked the 8400 at the end of the field, walked back to the 4440 and I was good to go again.


Having the pneumatic down pressure makes a difference in the dry, hard, wheat stubble fields. I’m sure the weight plays a factor too. But I think that Kinze would’ve had a hard time breaking through in that stuff. But I was able to at least plant what I had on the planter which was about 30 acres.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Tuesday I had to help dad move around to get some more spraying finished.

We had some beans in the drill, so rather than empty them out of the drill and then putting them into the planter I just finished planting the bottoms field from Monday with the drill.

Naturally I came up about 4 acres shy of getting it all drilled before I ran out. So a trip back to the shop to get a few more beans and I was able to get it done.

So that was it. That job was done.


…and the river still wasn’t going down…

Got dad loaded to finish staying the last wheat field I’d just planted.


Then, things aren’t dangerously dry, but the pastures were looking dry enough I decided to put out some hay for all the cattle.

They didn’t mind it at all. I don’t mind them eating a little hay either to avoid taking the pasture down to nothing.

Dad got a call from my b-i-l’s brother. He was trying to drill beans, his drill broke down, and it was going to be 3 days til he could get the parts. There was a chance of rain Wednesday evening, so he asked if dad could plant them for him. So dad went off to do that.

While putting hay out I came across what would be the biggest pain in the *** of the week, besides the river.

We had calves out, the big calves. I put a bale of hay out for them. I’d noticed only 12 of the over 40 were in the lot. But it was hot, late afternoon. They like to stay in the shade. But turns out all but those 12 had all got out and were all over the place.

I managed to get those calves ran in. It was another 12. So I had 24 of them and kept them locked up in the lot until I could find where they got out at.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Wednesday started with 3 move calves being out in the bean field.

I had to set up my blockage to keep them from running out the road. Got 3 in and a group of them headed running across the bean field and into the woods. It was warming up quick and trying to chase a bunch of calves through the woods is a nightmare. So I just let them go for the time, until it would cool down.

I fixed the spot where the fence was broke. A small tree had fell on it and loosened the wires up. From there I guess a group of them just decided to completely bust through the loosened wires.

So I checked all the rest of the cattle. Put out mineral and loaded up the back rubbers yet again. Switched some of the cows onto other pastures too.

Finally got a chance to go pick up the new shaft for the brush hog too. They didn’t want to drop it and it’s pine coffin at the drop box in town so I had to pick it up at the store. It only took a week until I actually had the chance to do it.


Luckily, by Wednesday evening we got a much needed .8” of rain. But it really only hit there at the shop. Most of the other farms didn’t get near that much rain.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Thursday morning we had some more rain.

Between Wednesday and Thursday we had 1.5” at the shop. But not that much everywhere.

Thursday morning we managed to catch one more of the escapee calves. Wednesday evening the rest were still running out. But I managed to at least get them locked in a pasture so they couldn’t just roam around where ever the wanted.

So Thursday afternoon, after a lot of running, hollering, and sliding on mud on the hills in the woods, almost busting my **** a few times, we finally managed to get the calves ran up to the one barn and in the lot. Of corse this isn’t the barn lot they’re supposed to be in. But we got them loaded on the trailer and put them back where they belonged.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Friday I felt like I didn’t get anything done. One of our seed guys came by to buy a few tools from me. He was there for over an hour.

A guy called dad to see if we’d buy some clover square bales he had left that he wanted to get rid of. Being that we were out of hay and he was giving us a good deal on it we decided to buy it.

He dropped by and we stacked the hay on our wagon in the barn. He hung around for over an hour.

That was followed by the neighbors out the road brining their grandkids back to see the cows. They were there for awhile.

So by the afternoon I just checked on everything with all the cattle.

I gave the troublesome calves a batch of feed. Also made sure all the ones I moved to other pastures were getting along ok. Making sure there weren’t any other fence issues.

Saturday I didn’t do a lot. I serviced the F-250. Then swapped a tire on my truck I’d had to have fixed that’d gone flat earlier in the week.

So we’re finally to a place that we can catch our breath for a little while. Major jobs are kind of wrapped up.

The river, last I checked, won’t be going down until last Tuesday. So what’s underwater is no doubt done for. It’ll definitely hurt what’s standing in quite a bit of water. I’m sure by the time things are dry enough to go out there to try and replant it won’t hardly be worth the trouble. But we’ll see what happens. If it was going to raise it should’ve just drowned them all out and we could’ve at least got something from insurance from it. But I don’t think the insurance will do much of anything as is. Wait and see.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Did some detecting Saturday afternoon too. Had a few cool finds.

Taking a break today. First day off in over a month.

Happy Fourth of July.