Between the River Hills & the River Bottom

[cliftonbros89]

Sounds like you had a good crowd for the tool event. That a made a long day if you closed down after 1100 PM though. Or shall I say a long week?

You seem to have at least one calf to bottle feed each season.

Sounds like you had a good crowd for the tool event. That a made a long day if you closed down after 1100 PM though. Or shall I say a long week?

You seem to have at least one calf to bottle feed each season.

Not much different from a regular week. But it was almost a full week process to get it ready to go.

Yeah. Luckily, it’s been awhile. But I guess it’s better than the alternative.

 

[cliftonbros89]

More to come. Had to charge the phone yesterday in between post.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I’ll get updated soon. It just seems like the work never stops. Been keeping busy. Been getting some tools sold as well. Even when I’m at the farm doing things I’m always in the middle of to business. If I’m not looking up prices and availability for one customer, then I’m just looking into other options for another. Or luckily, moving something I already have in stock.

Not in the field yet either. My guess is maybe another 2 weeks. From what I’ve heard places south of us have started. I know a few guys in our area that actually will have some beans ready to go by the end of this week or middle of next week.

We did have a bit of relief from our dry spell finally. This past weekend on Saturday we had over 4 inches. A few spots in the county had more than that.

But it didn’t take long for it to disappear. I know the ground was hard enough a bunch of it just ran off. But as for the rest of it. If it did soak in then it really soaked it up. You couldn’t hardly tell it rained on top of the ground by Sunday afternoon. But as of now it looks like nothing but sun for at least the next 10 days. Warmer temperatures are going to we back in too.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

This summer has been very dry. I live about 30 miles to the east of puddle town (Portland) and the last measurable rain has been over 50 days ago. When I was a kid we had to play little league baseball in the rain because you could never count on sunshine for make up games. Anywho thank you for sharing!

 

[ambenz]

We usually get the weather you get but this time most of the rain stayed south of us.
I bet you got sideswiped by tropical storm Ida and that is where those 4 inches came from.
We got a tenth if that Tuesday and my rain barrels remain dry.
Thanks for sharing the pictures of the cows and farm, always "cool" to check in and see what is happening SW of me on ole' Miss.

 

[Sifan]

Central Illinois is a couple of weeks away. Neighbor shelled off end rows and got everyone excited, it tested 28% lol
Replaced worn out fan shaft belly of combine - not fun. Replaced worn out stripper bars on corn head, one time to be glad for a 6 row head, only 108 bolts also not fun.

 

[jollygreengiant]

We were in the same boat as you. No rain for a few weeks, and it was extremely hot. We got 2-3" here in the last week and the fields soaked up the first 2" easily.

Guys started dry beans here last weekend. It's a good thing it rained, those beans were way too dry. Probably some guys start beans here once it dries up, way ahead of last year.

 

[cliftonbros89]

We usually get the weather you get but this time most of the rain stayed south of us.
I bet you got sideswiped by tropical storm Ida and that is where those 4 inches came from.
We got a tenth if that Tuesday and my rain barrels remain dry.
Thanks for sharing the pictures of the cows and farm, always "cool" to check in and see what is happening SW of me on ole' Miss.

I think we got quite a bit of it from a front that came through. I can’t remember anymore. But it was much needed at least for the pastures and late beans.

Thanks for following along.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Central Illinois is a couple of weeks away. Neighbor shelled off end rows and got everyone excited, it tested 28% lol
Replaced worn out fan shaft belly of combine - not fun. Replaced worn out stripper bars on corn head, one time to be glad for a 6 row head, only 108 bolts also not fun.

I’m hoping to test some of ours in the next day or so. I took a short drive Saturday afternoon and saw a few combines running.

Sunday I took a drive out of town to visit a cousin north of me. I saw a few fields already combined along the interstate. But it’s in an area that is always several weeks ahead of us.

Jobs like that are always a great time.

 

[cliftonbros89]

We were in the same boat as you. No rain for a few weeks, and it was extremely hot. We got 2-3" here in the last week and the fields soaked up the first 2" easily.

Guys started dry beans here last weekend. It's a good thing it rained, those beans were way too dry. Probably some guys start beans here once it dries up, way ahead of last year.

Yeah even that 4” that we had didn’t stick around long, at least on top. There’s surprisingly more moisture below the surface than I thought there would be. At least as of this past Friday.

I know a few guys that have some short season beans that they planted early, some planted before their corn. Those beans were supposed to be ready to go about now. Saw a few combine moving this weekend. But literally just a few. No one had got in a rush yet surprisingly. Unless, some of them started today. We do have some beans that have leave turning yellow. They’re on the way to being ready to go.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Got started in the fields Thursday afternoon. Lots to catch up, as if there wasn’t already. Things have been going good so far. First farm in the bottom turned out really well. Hopefully, thing continue to everywhere.

 

[jollygreengiant]

You guys get a new combine?

 

[cliftonbros89]

You guys get a new combine?

Nope. Same 9770 we’ve had for a long time. No to be confused with the 9500 we use for beans and wheat.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Nope. Same 9770 we’ve had for a long time. No to be confused with the 9500 we use for beans and wheat.

Ah gotcha. I can see why you would use the 9500 for wheat, but why not use the 9770 in beans?

 

[cliftonbros89]

Ah gotcha. I can see why you would use the 9500 for wheat, but why not use the 9770 in beans?

We do use the 9770 for beans also. We’ll typically try to use them both at the same time to knock things out a little easier.

Usually my uncle and I will go to one of the bigger farms with both semi-trucks and the 9770. Then my dad will go to a smaller farm with the 9500, grain cart and tandem truck.

Occasionally, depending on where we are we’ll run both machines at the same farm.

This worked out well when we did a lot more custom work as well. Either my uncle or dad would take the 9500 to do the custom stuff then the other would go with me to one of our fields with the 9770 while I ran the trucks.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I realized yesterday that I’m now over a month behind on regular updates. Hopefully, I’ll catch up soon.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Getting started on the last 100 acres of corn today. Back down in the bottom. We were supposed to have rain last night and today. But we didn’t hardly even get a sprinkle over night. So we got started again this afternoon.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Thanks for dropping a quick post, hope your yield is good and catch us up when you get some time.

 

[welder57]

Hope all is well there!!!

 

[cliftonbros89]

Hope all is well there!!!

Not too bad. Had some major rain over the weekend though. More on the way by the end of the week. Doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a productive week in the field at all this week.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I think I’ll get a chance to get caught up on updates here this week. I’ve got stuff that goes back to August and here we are at the end of October.

But for a short summary, we’d finished corn. Out corn in the bottom ground turned out good. Hill ground it wasn’t so great. We got a good start on beans. We even managed to get a little under 200 acres of wheat drilled and 30 acres of forage wheat drilled. But we’ve just got our second crop beans to cut, so close to 250 acres to go and we’ll be done. With that part of the fall work at least.

No real major break downs. But we have had a few issues here and there. A few more since the weekend too.

We had a few showers a week or so ago that slowed us down for a few days. But Saturday morning into Saturday afternoon we had anywhere from .7” to 1.5”. Then last night we had a cold front move through that brought some pretty strong storms in. It brought an additional 2” to 3.5” on rain in under just a few hours. It rained hard. Lots of overflowed ditches drains, and sinkholes.

We did have a bit of wind damage in places. But most everything checked out ok. The major story was tornadoes. We didn’t have any. But one came close. There was one touched down just north of us and we just across the river from us a little ways. But we managed to avoid any major damage. But there’s supposed to be more rain on the way by Thursday and Friday. This is going yo definitely be a set back in getting things done.

I was watching the local news last night as everything was going on. With tornadoes going on they were on the weather full time for a couple hours last night. At one point there were 4 confirmed tornadoes on the radar at the same time in the area. The meteorologist who was talking at the time said in his 30 plus years at the station he’s never seen that happen before.

 

[welder57]

Be safe out there, with wind here we always had to check our fences. Cows can always smell where they were down.......

 

[jollygreengiant]

Wow that's not good to hear, re the weather. We had a good storm come through that brought another 2" though I don't think it was the same system that generated your tornadoes. It's crazy wet here, to the point where there will likely be some soybeans abandoned unless we get a break in the weather before winter.

Good to hear things are going reasonably well though, and good to see you posting.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Be safe out there, with wind here we always had to check our fences. Cows can always smell where they were down.......

Yeah. I made sure none were out yesterday. Also made sure none were washed down the creek at the retirement farm either. But going around all the fences is definitely on the agenda for today or tomorrow. I have a hard time believing that there isn’t at least one tree on a fence somewhere

 

[cliftonbros89]

Wow that's not good to hear, re the weather. We had a good storm come through that brought another 2" though I don't think it was the same system that generated your tornadoes. It's crazy wet here, to the point where there will likely be some soybeans abandoned unless we get a break in the weather before winter.

Good to hear things are going reasonably well though, and good to see you posting.

Thanks.

I’d say depending on what we get at the end of this week we may be in a similar situation. I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want to be stuck cutting beans at the end of December when it’s 20 out.

I feel bad for the guys that still have corn out. I haven’t drove around much since Sunday. But I would think there’d have to be some corn laying down in a few fields after the hard rain and winds that we had. Down corn is the worst.

 

[XJSuperman]

We got the same rain, but the winds weren't that bad here. Awful wet and muddy now. Glad to hear you had minimal breakdowns thus far.

 

[cliftonbros89]

We got the same rain, but the winds weren't that bad here. Awful wet and muddy now. Glad to hear you had minimal breakdowns thus far.

I’m hoping the next round doesn’t amount to as much. We’re definitely saturated here now. Shorter days and dropping temperatures aren’t going to speed the drying process up any either.

Breakdowns have been minimal. But it seems the list of repairs just keeps growing longer by the day.

 

[captain14]

We must have got that rain here on Monday night. Poured for 6-8 hours and I measured over 2” in the rain gauge. First significant rain we’ve had in 6+ week. Tuesday followed with heavy winds and the temperatures have dropped.

 

[ambenz]

That was a big rain for us too....I'm just glad it is not 20 degrees colder!!!!

 

[cliftonbros89]

We must have got that rain here on Monday night. Poured for 6-8 hours and I measured over 2” in the rain gauge. First significant rain we’ve had in 6+ week. Tuesday followed with heavy winds and the temperatures have dropped.

We had a big temperature change and lots of wind after it came through too. Little more rain today too.

 

[cliftonbros89]

That was a big rain for us too....I'm just glad it is not 20 degrees colder!!!!

I’m glad it wasn’t either. I could go without that.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Well I’m not sure where to even start on catching up. I suppose we’ll try to go by category, starting with the major stuff. Field work. That type of thing.

Bare with me as it may take a bit, especially since I can only load 10 pictures per post.

Way back on September 14 I picked off some ears of corn to test the moisture.


Moisture was still plenty high but it was time to get things ready.


We got the 2520 and swing hopper auger looked over and ready to go.

Lubed up and set things on the 9500 so it would be ready to roll when it was time to cut beans.

Got the 9770 and corn head ready for corn.

We put new contour sensors and wiring harness on the header. My uncle had the old setup all tore up. It wasn’t working. They wouldn’t take the time to get it working. So ever since my uncle has just been tearing the **** out of everything since on the hills.

Lubed everything. Tighened chains. Checked bearings out.

Got the 8400 hooked to the grain cart. 8400 was good. Did a quick check of hoses, bearings, driveline, tires, and gearbox on the grain cart.

Combine and header we set and ready to go. At least we thought so anyway…

 

[cliftonbros89]

We thought we were set. We had things ready to go. A few days of light rain. We were ready to hit the fields.

But for some reason the deck plates on the corn head wouldn’t operate. I tried to look into it, but as usual patience very quickly grew thin on my dad and uncle’s side. So I had to just say the hell with it because the insisted we start anyway.

So that’s just what we did. We started at one of our fields in the bottom. Uncle was in the combine, dad in the cart, me in the trucks. We knew that field looked good. But we didn’t know how good.




It didn’t take long to figure out I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Going as fast as possible they were still sitting waiting for me. So to somewhat speed things up dad had to take one truck and I took the other. I’d get to the field, jump in the 8400 with the grain cart, load the truck, get the cart loaded and head out. Then dad would do the same. Luckily, there was one day we had our buddy Noah to run the cart. That made things a little easier.

That field, 125 acres, had 2 varieties of some Pioneer corn. I think it made the best it’s ever done. Rough average was over 230 bushel per acre. We were definitely happy with it. We hauled 26 truck loads out of that field.

So we kept rolling.

The weather was staying nice so we didn’t hit things too crazy hard. Somewhat warmer that usual temps. Sunny skies. Things were rolling pretty good.

We had more corn in the bottom. But with the one field doing as good as it did we knew we’d likely run low on storage. So we headed to the hill fields.

The field that was left in the bottom was planted first. The landlord’s share of that field gets hauled to their bins. That way we could get rid of some corn there. Also, by the time we did the corn in the hills that field in the bottom would be dry and we could haul it to the barge if we needed to. Plus, it’d be a shorter trip to the barge from there.

At this point most of the corn was running about 18-19.5% moisture. So bin fans were blowing and larger bins were getting propane to blow some heat too.

Things were still going good. I still hadn’t been able to get the deck plates working on the header. I was busy taking care of everything else.

But we left the bottom and headed to the hill fields. Which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

 

[cliftonbros89]

I didn’t get a ton of pictures in the field as I was in a truck, running an auger, and doing 20 other things in between. Let’s be honest we can all look at only so many pictures of trucks and augers. But I took pictures of what I could when I thought about it.

So we made our way up the road. There are several farms up one specific road. We also use that same road to get to several other farms and is also our quickest route to town. Just a regular 2 lane highway. But there are several turns. There really isn’t much of a shoulder anywhere. There are few decent places to pull over with equipment. But this is also a busy road as well. So it typically means there are few times we can travel up and down it without meeting other vehicles.

The bad thing with meeting vehicles with large equipment is that no one has patience. Many people are on the move or aren’t paying attention. But this can go both ways.

When we travel up the road I’ll be in front in the truck pulling the header. Lights flashing, arms waving, most people don’t pay attention to me. Next is my uncle in the combine. I try to keep a distance between us that allows oncoming traffic to know he’s behind me. But I keep far enough away to allow them to have time slow down and possibly move over. He’s followed by my dad with the grain cart.

We were traveling up the road. We were crossing a bridge, one of the few spots with a shoulder. On coming traffic wouldn’t move over any, wouldn’t slow down. My uncle was trying to move over. But he’s always in a rush and he didn’t slow down either…the end result…
He ended up hitting the end cap on the guard rail to the bridge. It ruined the tire and bent the rim. Believe me when I say that the picture doesn’t do justice to the damage on the rim.

So that was the end of the day for us. We weren’t going to try and run with just one wheel on that side. Naturally this didn’t mean the end of the day for me. I had to find where we could get a rim and who could get me a tire fast.

If you’re wondering why I say a rim, I don’t know if you’ve ever had experience with a rim like this, but there’s no bending these things back. They’re some stout mothers. Not to mention this rim has one heck of a bevel on the end. I’m not sure what you’d even be able to use to try and bend it back. Especially to get a tire to mount back on it and hold air properly.

Next morning we did some measuring.

Luckily, the center and bolt pattern for the 8760 rims are the same as the 9770 rims. But not quite as wide so it fit a little closer to the other wheel. So that got us by for a few days.

I looked online for a price for Deere. Over $3,000 for the rim. That wasn’t happening. Not to mention I’d hate to see what they’d charge for freight on it. So I tried the scrap yards for a used rim. That wasn’t easy either.

The one scrap yard that is about an hour south is a chain that has several locations around the country. Online is said they one had 3 available. One was way up in Iowa and 2 others were at the location in Wisconsin. It was going to be minimum 6 hour drive one way. So I called the “local” location. Told them what I needed, naturally Deere has subbed part number and of coarse had 2 or 3 different sizes for the 9770. After talking to a guy twice I got a call after a few hours. He found one in their yard. Luckily, just one as well. He’d mentioned earlier that they wouldn’t split up a set of duals. You had to buy both rims. But lucky for us we were able to get just the one we needed.

A few days later in between things dad made the trip south to pick it up. $1,000 for the used rim. I’d already called our tire guy, he’d order a new tire, he didn’t look up the price cuz he knew we had to have it. But he said it was probably $1,400-1,500 for the tire. He mounted the tire on the rim for us. Then we took it to the field and swapped the 8760 wheel off for the new/used 9770 wheel.

Both times we swapped on and off we just pulled that side of the combine up on blocks. Then we brought the 7230 up the road to use the loader and our dual wheel holder to mount the dual on the combine. It definitely helped to do so this way. Lots less of a struggle.

But this was a great opportunity to break in the Milwaukee 3/4” impact I’d bought myself back in August. (Side note, I ended up not needing the extension pictured) It’s a good thing I had it cuz I definitely needing it for the lug bolts. I may have been able to bust them loose with my big 3/4” breaker bar and a pipe. But that would’ve sucked doing all 10 bolts. The impact worked pretty good. It definitely made the job faster. Only complaint is it doesn’t seem to have the breakaway that they’re advised to. It had a bit of a struggle to break loose these bolts. But all in all I’m glad I had it. Being in the field the big breaker bar was my only other option. The 1/2” DeWalt wasn’t going to even tough these.

So, all in all it cost us at least $2,500. I’d say at least a good 3 hours of time just doing both swaps and repair. Not counting down time that we couldn’t run the machine.

Moral of the story, everyone just need to slow down a little, pay a little more attention to what they’re doing, and just take things easy. Everyone gets in a rush and it only takes a slight moment to make a big mistake that can easily be avoided.

I was definitely pissed off about it. Not even the cost at first, just the fact that it happened. But there was no use to start yelling and complaining. It wouldn’t only resulted in more aggravation and arguing. That just makes things worse. Sometimes you just have to face it, fix it and move on. So that’s what I did. It was fixed and we were on the move again.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Glad to see some updates!

And I don't know about the rest of the posters here but I never get tired of seeing pics of trucks and augers.

 

[XJSuperman]

Let’s be honest we can all look at only so many pictures of trucks and augers.

BLASPHAMY!



Bummer about the rim. Did you check with any of the aftermarket, like Unverferth? I know they make rims for some applications.

I'm not super familiar with the Milwaukee stuff, but I know some 1/2" models have a button for changing the power setting. I haven't seen that on Dewalt. You had that cranked all the way up, right? I find myself on the wrong setting half the time.

Really good to hear your yields were looking up! Especially after reading Mike's thread in Minnesota where he was getting 60bu/ac corn. I think things went pretty well for us in Iowa this year. Most guys are wrapping up now after waiting a bit from all that rain. Yesterday they were balls out filling carts, wagons, and trucks.

 

[cliftonbros89]

BLASPHAMY!



Bummer about the rim. Did you check with any of the aftermarket, like Unverferth? I know they make rims for some applications.

I'm not super familiar with the Milwaukee stuff, but I know some 1/2" models have a button for changing the power setting. I haven't seen that on Dewalt. You had that cranked all the way up, right? I find myself on the wrong setting half the time.

Really good to hear your yields were looking up! Especially after reading Mike's thread in Minnesota where he was getting 60bu/ac corn. I think things went pretty well for us in Iowa this year. Most guys are wrapping up now after waiting a bit from all that rain. Yesterday they were balls out filling carts, wagons, and trucks.

I’ve got plenty more of those if you really want to see them.

I did a brief search for aftermarket but didn’t have much luck. Especially, to get something quick. The scrap yard can get aftermarket stuff new and they said there wasn’t anything available.

I had the Milwaukee 3/4” at full power. Didn’t take long to go through the battery power either to loosen those 10 bolts. That DeWalt 1/2” turned up all the way wouldn’t touch it. It’s ok for a regular truck or wagon, but definitely not a combine.

Around here, locally I’ve heard pretty good things for the most part. What I think hurt our hills was our dry spell in June & July. At that time the river was also way up. I think the seep water from the river is what really helped out our corn in the bottom. During that driest time was when the river was up. One time seep water was beneficial.

Things have definitely been crazy around here. I know several guys getting close to wrapping things up. But I know several guys that have hardly started. It seems like everyone is all over. Some guys started with beans first and just not doing corn. Lots of guys, like us, did corn first and working on beans. I know some guys that grow quite a few pumpkins they just finally started this week on getting corn. They haven’t touched anything. Everyone has their own game plan. I think a lot of guys weren’t hitting things to hard cuz the weather was nice. But no that it’s rained quite a bit and cooling down things have really picked up.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Glad to see some updates!

And I don't know about the rest of the posters here but I never get tired of seeing pics of trucks and augers.

Thanks.

I’m glad someone enjoys them. I know I’m tired of seeing trucks and augers.

 

[captain14]

Doesn’t the local economy operate from farm productions and you would think the locals would know the farm equipment is out working the fields and roadways. I know an hour north of me where my mother lives, I’ve see the local newspapers and radio mention about its farm equipment season.

I don’t even want to hear what your uncle said about the rim and bridge accident.

 

[cliftonbros89]

Doesn’t the local economy operate from farm productions and you would think the locals would know the farm equipment is out working the fields and roadways. I know an hour north of me where my mother lives, I’ve see the local newspapers and radio mention about its farm equipment season.

I don’t even want to hear what your uncle said about the rim and bridge accident.

They know. Majority of them just don’t care. They think the tractor/equipment should always be the one to pull over or get off the road. They also think you should pull off every single time a vehicle gets behind you. What they’ve got to do is more important than what we’re doing. It doesn’t matter if the papers, the news, or the radio tell them to watch out. It also doesn’t matter if someone shares something about it on Facebook. These people don’t have the patience and apparently don’t have the time.

Well, naturally, as with every situation, it wasn’t his fault by any means.