Above 1200 Sq/FT Out on Quaker Road

[Burl]

Sure looks like a great place. We have a daughter in Fargo and we usually fly to the TC and drive the rest of the way. Great country!

 

[jollygreengiant]

I see your 2388 is only pushing a 20' header?? I guess it's a good idea to play it safe, don't want to overload it.

Question: your plumbing in the shop bathroom leads to the holding tank you showed pics of earlier?? Do you then have it pumped out regularly?

 

[XJSuperman]

Im a couple days late, but those wagons of beans look really clean. Not surprising as the red machines can do a damn fine job of it. Couple more years and you'll have real gps. Then you'll forget what you did without it. Its the way things are going, as you well know.

Im stoked to hear your crops are yielding so well. I haven't heard how the beans came out here in derecho territory. Corn is underway at this point. Beans are pretty much done between Ames and DesMoines.

 

[welder57]

Andy, Would you add pictures of the damage crops on this thread, if you can, so the rest of the world will see what happen with that bad storm y'all had. Thanks!!!!!

 

[XJSuperman]

Heres a link to a video showing a corn field being harvested. Its accurate.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/v...arvest-twice-much-work-half-yield/3517695001/

Not sure if the above link is just the video or the whole article, but this should cover it:
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...ges-derecho-pandemic-trade-market/5863795002/

 

[racer-john]

Damn newspapers screwing up reports because of blocked ads.

 

[welder57]

Thanks XJSuperman, 74 year old still doing what Farmers do best, Make what you can with what you have. Way to go, Sir.

 

[jblnut]

The vises mounted on the receiver deals is a cool idea. I could see using the same type mount for a bench grinder too.

Shop is looking really nice.

I enjoy all the farming info. too as another city dude that has no idea about farming.
Thanks for a very interesting thread.
Vince

I've seen a few other welding tables with receiver deals on them on GJ and thought that it'd be the way to go so when I saw this table for sale I knew it had to come home. That and the two giant vises on it made it a pretty sweet deal !!

The shop will hopefully be "done" by 2049

I'm having a good time posting and sharing what we do and appreciate your following along !!!

Sure looks like a great place. We have a daughter in Fargo and we usually fly to the TC and drive the rest of the way. Great country!

Stop in sometime on your way through !! You drive only a few miles away while going up I-94

I see your 2388 is only pushing a 20' header?? I guess it's a good idea to play it safe, don't want to overload it.

Question: your plumbing in the shop bathroom leads to the holding tank you showed pics of earlier?? Do you then have it pumped out regularly?

We like combining beans so no need to do it any faster than necessary

The shop bathroom .... yes ... it goes to a holding tank .... if it gets full it'll get pumped out .... due to some unphotographed things it shouldn't ever fill up ....

I'm a couple days late, but those wagons of beans look really clean. Not surprising as the red machines can do a damn fine job of it. Couple more years and you'll have real gps. Then you'll forget what you did without it. Its the way things are going, as you well know.

Im stoked to hear your crops are yielding so well. I haven't heard how the beans came out here in derecho territory. Corn is underway at this point. Beans are pretty much done between Ames and DesMoines.

The Green STS (stolen technology series) combines started the Green revolution and finally brought the wonderful axial flow world to the late adopting Green guys

We actually thought the beans were a little dirty and have made a few adjustments inside the combine to clean them up. There are very few pods and chaff in the tanks now

We thought the yields we saw in the first field would be our best for soybeans but they keep getting better. It's neat. We've never had soybeans yields this good before. Must be the COVID fueling them !!!

Andy, Would you add pictures of the damage crops on this thread, if you can, so the rest of the world will see what happen with that bad storm y'all had. Thanks!!!!!

Links to a few YouTube farmer videos ......

Here's a link to a video showing a corn field being harvested. It's accurate.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/v...arvest-twice-much-work-half-yield/3517695001/

Not sure if the above link is just the video or the whole article, but this should cover it:
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...ges-derecho-pandemic-trade-market/5863795002/

Great links XJ.

Damn newspapers screwing up reports because of blocked ads.

It worked for me

Thanks XJSuperman, 74 year old still doing what Farmers do best, Make what you can with what you have. Way to go, Sir.

That is the attitude of most farmers. We are blessed to have what we do have and need to work harder when hardships come our way.

 

[davo727]

A guy or 2 here had asked Mike about cow intelligence previously so Ill just leave this pic here of my friends sisters cow.

A rototiller.

 

[jeepxj]

A guy or 2 here had asked Mike about cow intelligence previously so Ill just leave this pic here of my friends sisters cow.

A rototiller.

mules are damn geniuses. they can work gate latches without fail.

 

[NockOn]

Reminds me of my late uncle who had a Diary farm

 

[jblnut]

A guy or 2 here had asked Mike about cow intelligence previously so I'll just leave this pic here of my friends sisters cow.

A rototiller.

I think the question of cow intelligence is an easy one ... they are not the smartest creatures out there ... The intelligent tech that is getting put to use to better their lives is pretty neat though. If you could teach that cow to use that rototiller she could fertilize and work it in with one pass

Mules are damn geniuses. They can work gate latches without fail.

Mules are clever and seem to learn mischievous stuff and remember it well. My steers cause dumb problems like chewing open latches and such but I think it's because they're bored and want to mess with me

Reminds me of my late uncle who had a Diary farm

Thank you for stopping by and I'm glad I can spark some memories about your uncle. I hope they're good memories

 

[jblnut]

Pops and I got the form around the drain by the shop done finally. I think once it's filled in and around with concrete it'll work well

The base is in and squashed down with the tamper.

Rebar has gone up HOW MUCH ?? Pfffft ... I've got some old cattle panels I do not need so in they go !!!

Around 11ish we got back after the soybeans.

Om nom nom here he comes !!

Marching along at 3.6mph it doesn't take long to munch through the acres !!

We've got the John Deere 7810 hauling wagons today. I'd argue it's the greatest tractor ever produced. I'd love to have a dozen more 7000 Ten series John Deeres around !!!

I dropped a few gravity wagons off for Dad to fill and had time to mix a batch of feed for the steers in between. I didn't get a picture yet of the concrete around the drain when it was done but we ordered a little extra to clean this area up. The dirt here was always washing away from the runoff from the roof. I love concrete

Last year I repaired one of our 300bu EzFlow wagons and this year the other one is cracking in the same places. Time for some repairs !!!

I cleaned it out and made a cardboard template for the patches needed.

This is a "scrap" leftover from patching the fender areas on the camper bus quite some time ago and will make perfect patches for the gravity wagons

Before I bent them in the press with my super awesome patent pending bending jig I had time to wonder if this was a bad idea ..... turns out it worked VERY well but needs a little refinement. Like not having multiple places things can kick out 12 times before getting it all "just right" and having it bend things nicely.

Dad is almost done with this field so I went back out to shuffle wagons around.

I popped in the combine cab for a little while and took a very blurry pic of the yield monitor. 85bu/a average is pretty wild for our area !!!

Dad's welder was out of gas so I went over to the shop of the future and started the repairs. No need to rush into the new shop so I best fix it halfway in

Left side patched up ...

Right side patched up ...

I'd say it'll be good for another 40yrs or so

I ran back to get the load Dad filled and got it into the bin.

This never gets old

Air the tires up on the newly repaired wagon and off we go !!

The two front wagons are full and the rear one is empty .... the ol' 7810 is going to snort on the way home with 1250bu behind it

Here is one of the few benefits about having a 20' header on that 2388 .... it's easy to road around without taking the head off

I made it home incident free with all the wagons

While unloading I found a nail in one of the tires. I checked the pressure and it hadn't lost any since I filled them a few weeks back so we'll leave it for now

Load number 8 getting filled

Dad is out combining while a neighbor is bailing in my meadow finally. It has rained just enough each nice for a few weeks now that he was unable to get it baled sooner. It'll be fine hay just took a long time to get it dry !!

This is REALLY nice 2nd cutting meadow hay !!

We rigged up a bale fork for the 3pt so we can take 3 bales at a time out of the back meadow now. We increased productivity by 50%

Now it's off to watch my 2nd grader in their weekly mass at school. Each week one grade does all the readings and such and it's the 2nd graders turn this week. They'll be happy to see me and I'm excited to watch them !!!!

 

[XJSuperman]

Those 7xxx series are popular, no doubt about it. Biggest complain Ive heard about them are after you run an 8xxx series. The ride is so much better and the bouncing reduced due to the wheelbase difference and weight distribution. I can't remember if the turning radius is all that different, but I can say that a new 8R turns better than a new 7R IME. They have the same engine power options nowadays, so Id opt for the 8 personally, but of course a cost difference comes along with that. smh.

 

[loganb]

Those 7xxx series are popular, no doubt about it. Biggest complain Ive heard about them are after you run an 8xxx series. The ride is so much better and the bouncing reduced due to the wheelbase difference and weight distribution. I can't remember if the turning radius is all that different, but I can say that a new 8R turns better than a new 7R IME. They have the same engine power options nowadays, so Id opt for the 8 personally, but of course a cost difference comes along with that. smh.

Never run the 7 series, but have heard others comment the 8's are more comfortable...only run the 8's and that cab is awesome. As you get up into the upper HP ranges in the 7 series not sure the power is usable as its harder to get it to the ground. We have an 8370R(2019 model) and start to run out of traction pulling the big grain cart if its loaded on a slight incline and thats with dual front tires and a front weight kit. Yes its a big cart, but if the larger 8 series with tires runs out of traction, not sold the top HP models in the 7 series can actually use the HP effectively. Next machine may have to be the tracked 8R 370 but didn't want to be the local guinea pigs on the new model.

Non farming translation-just like race cars, horsepower is useless unless you have an effective way to transmit it to the ground. The farming equivalent of bigger tires, traction bars, tubbing a rear end is similar but involves bolting additional tires on, weight kits to increase downforce or even filling the tires with liquid(calcium chloride) to add weight to better get that horsepower to the ground. When that isn't sufficient it may require a bigger/heavier machine....or tracks to increase the footprint on the ground. The tractor in the picture has 370 rated HP, ***** about 20 gallons of diesel an hour when working, and when that cart behind it is loaded is pulling roughly 100,000 lbs plus the 33k lbs of the tractor. The cart will hold around 1.5 semi loads of grain

View media item 107072


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[atch]

I've been watching this thread since the beginning; and other similar ones on farms.

This probably isn't the best place to put this but I have something to say to all you farmers:

As a non-farm-kid I never had the chance to learn much if anything about farming. Now I'm just an old retired loafer. One thing I have realized my entire life, though, is that if you folks didn't do what you do, and do it very well I might add, the rest of us would have starved eons ago. I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every person who raises crops or animals so that the rest of us can have food on our tables. I don't think that I am capable mentally or physically of doing what you do but sure am glad that you are.

Sorry for the disruption so now back to your regularly scheduled program...

 

[cvairwerks]

Something to think about all.... Watched a video this week from a guy that just survived a gruesome combine accident. Was roading it with the head on. Hit a bump, head dropped, dug in and the combine went over it. When the feeder house hit the ground, the combine stopped and he didn’t. Worth the 10 minutes or so listening to his description and seeing all the photos.
Got to stay safe all....

 

[jblnut]

Something to think about all.... Watched a video this week from a guy that just survived a gruesome combine accident. Was roading it with the head on. Hit a bump, head dropped, dug in and the combine went over it. When the feeder house hit the ground, the combine stopped and he didn’t. Worth the 10 minutes or so listening to his description and seeing all the photos.
Got to stay safe all....

Link to that video ->

 

[racer-john]

" horsepower is useless unless you have an effective way to transmit it to the ground."
It's the torque you have to get to the ground, the horsepower is just along for the ride to keep it going.

 

[loganb]

" horsepower is useless unless you have an effective way to transmit it to the ground."
It's the torque you have to get to the ground, the horsepower is just along for the ride to keep it going.

Correct, however tractors are classified, marketed and tested to horsepower numbers and torque values are rarely reported. Trucks and semi's often get torque values called out in literature but not the same for tractors, still a straight HP war.

Nebraska Tractor(a test lab run by University of Neb) is a source of independent test reports for tractor performance and one of the few test groups I've seen that include torque and torque rise though its not a common metric for comparison in the industry. The model of John Deere with the red cart pictured above was tested by Neb. Tractor at 1159 ft/lb at 1600 rpm.

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[XJSuperman]

Thanks for the link Mike. I was reading about that accident last week I think (or one very similar). It must be that my large ag equipment experience has been with large companies, but the "wear your seatbelt at all times" rule has been drilled into my memory. Esp in combines and tractors on the road where it doesn't take much to literally be thrown out of the seat by a pothole. The combine cab position amplifies this.

I am glad the guy is ok, he's damn lucky. But I have a feeling he will be wearing his seatbelt next time he hits the road in the combine. I too, have no idea why he wasn't run over. There is not a lot of reason the machine stopped, other than the cut wires that may truely have been an act from Above. For those of you unfamiliar with these machines, there is a dead-man (operator presence) switch in the seat, but usually this is only tied into using GPS autotracking and whether or not the separator (harvesting parts) are running. It won't stop a 20mph combine in its tracks.

Funny enough, I have personally driven the next larger size model Case combine in this guy's local area. I drove an 8240 through downtown Jackson, TN and around local towns around there and Brownsville a few years ago. Those roads sucked and were pretty narrow as well. I had a few spots where I was saying prayers that no cars were coming because I was coming through with an 8 row header out front.

 

[davo727]

Rebar price... down here its still $645-660 a ton so 33 cents a pound.

 

[jblnut]

Due to the COVID stuff going on the kiddos have been having their weekly masses outside in the valley by the school all fall so far. It was an absolutely beautiful day and Miss Lily read her reading like a champ !!!


Little people tractor rides !!!


Once they saw the combine they decided they needed to ride with Grandpa. He was happy to have them and happy to have his quiet cab back when they were done riding with him


The last field of soybeans coming out


Soybeans are done so I turned my attention to the scraper hitch. The ball hitch on it was badly worn and came apart a few times and was time to be replaced. These bolts were sure in there !!!


The new ball is on


The other half didn't want to go in nicely so it needed a helping hand to stay together. Good ol' purple electrical tape to the rescue


The new inserts didn't want to let the bolts in nicely so out came the fancy drill and 5/8" bit to round out the hole.


Before it gets cold we need to winterize a few things. The sprayer is the main thing. It usually takes 6-8 gallons of RV Antifreeze to get all the nooks and crannies water free.


Out it comes !!!


Oh look, another John Deere by a fuel barrel


Time to bale some soybean straw !!!


Thump thump thump out come those bales


Pops called and said the baler was being grumpy for an unknown reason so I came over and we started to troubleshoot. It seems something is binding the #1 knotter up and we didn't know why ...


Eeeeeek that doesn't look good .....


Well. Seems like this particular area wasn't getting oiled properly. The shaft is all boogered up and the knotter frame has also gotten scarred up pretty badly


Picking up bales with a nice backdrop


Hey !!! You aren't suppose to be out here !!! Sneaky bastards pushed through a gate in the barn and then let themselves out through a man door that had a handle instead of a knob. They licked it open and went outside


The final concrete pour around the drain turned out nicely


I ran a hose over it to make sure water still flows downhill and sure thing, it does


Overall I am quite excited how well it turned out. Once it rains we shall see if it can handle the amount of water that will flow towards it.


Pops spread some chicken poooooooop on some of the oats ground on Friday. Poooooooooooooooooooooooooooop.


Big Red is back in action


My stupid camera on my phone missed the exact moment the nice black puff came out of the exhaust and instead it is a slightly dissipated cloud .... stupid phone.

 

[jeepxj]

almost done here.

 

[jblnut]

almost done here.

Gosh I love drone shots !!!

Which reminds me .... I should get mine out again !!!

 

[jblnut]

Hey look !! The inside of the grain dryer is nice and clean and is ready to do some work this fall


We're ready to start on corn so we combined some for the steers before we got the entire drying setup set up.


The auger that fills the wet holding bin gets set in the way of the pellet bin so I mixed a load of feed and loaded it up with more pellets for another load in a few days.


The combine and it's 8r head takes up the entire road


Not too much to complain about on that screen


Hey look the lights on the combine work !!!


Look at all that blurry corn getting combined

 

[loganb]

Thats an impressive yield...what did the field average when all said and done and how does that compare to it's couple year average?

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[lis2323]

No comment. Just want to acknowledge the awesome photos. [emoji481]

All these great farm pics that tell a story for your kids and their kids!

I wish we had iPhone cameras when I was still farming....

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jblnut]

That's an impressive yield...what did the field average when all said and done and how does that compare to it's couple year average?

The 327 was just at that moment of course .... the field is into the 260's now that we've gotten into more than just the end rows. I really think the monitor is reading high but I'm not sure how much yet. We're going to combine the test plot one day this week and we should be able to dial it in nicely then.

Last year this same field went 221bu/a @54lb test. This is usually one of the best fields we harvest.

No comment. Just want to acknowledge the awesome photos. [emoji481]

All these great farm pics that tell a story for your kids and their kids!

I wish we had iPhone cameras when I was still farming....

Thank you for the kind words

I sure hope this GJ deal is around when they start looking through things and being able to look back and see what has happened the last how many years on the farm. I guess it is a neat documentary of what goes on here.

I wish I had a camera phone that worked better. This one seems to take forever to focus and sometimes I miss "the shot" but oh well. In 5yrs when I get another new phone hopefully that one will be better

 

[jblnut]

Everyone smile so I can send Mom a picture !!!


Take #2 and Alyssa is still busy digging soybeans out of the rubber floor but Lily is ready and Leo is smiling like is Dad does lol ....


Take #3 and Alyssa is giving it 110%, Lily is trying her best and Leo is watching Grandpa unhook the next wagons. I guess 2 for 3 isn't bad !!!


Mama Bear and her fancy Subaru spaceship coming to get them for lunch.


Well the picture doesn't really highlight it all that well but there was a red haze with the amount of bees wings that were coming off the corn. It is around 18% moisture and is shelling very very nicely !!!


Dad and I priced a genuine AgCam system for the combine to put one in the hopper and the other on the end of the auger but it rang in around $1,600 so I decided to give a $150 eBay knock off a try. So far so good


The results of combining downhill and on a sidehill. I don't think more than an ice cream pail hit the ground but it is still less than ideal. I only had 30' left to get to the end and I should have stopped but noooooooooo. Lesson learned .... again .....

 

[loganb]

The 327 was just at that moment of course .... the field is into the 260's now that we've gotten into more than just the end rows. I really think the monitor is reading high but I'm not sure how much yet. We're going to combine the test plot one day this week and we should be able to dial it in nicely then.

Last year this same field went 221bu/a @54lb test. This is usually one of the best fields we harvest.

Reading high always makes ya feel better in the seat...even if you know it's off! Normally would take us a couple fields to get it dialed in, grain cart now has scales in it so should be a faster "check" on which display is reading true....and another thing to break!

Good luck to you on finding more yields like that! Mother nature has been good to some areas, yours and mine included....now for some better prices !

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[jeepxj]

Gosh I love drone shots !!!

Which reminds me .... I should get mine out again !!!

all done here. with 6 full drone batteries. hoping to go find some people still going who dont get all bill gates is flying around to steal our spinal fluid on me.


in other news:

 

[jblnut]

Reading high always makes ya feel better in the seat...even if you know it's off! Normally would take us a couple fields to get it dialed in, grain cart now has scales in it so should be a faster "check" on which display is reading true....and another thing to break!

Good luck to you on finding more yields like that! Mother nature has been good to some areas, yours and mine included....now for some better prices !

The combine grain tank holds near 300bu so I filled it up FULL and saw what the monitor read. It seems it's reading around 15% high but we'll take it !!!

All done here. With 6 full drone batteries. Hoping to go find some people still going who don't get all bill gates is flying around to steal our spinal fluid on me.


in other news:

You can come up here and drone around all you want

 

[jblnut]

I got some grating cut to fit in the hole until I can get a proper metal grate built. I think it'll actually work well so it may end up staying this way for a while.


We got the dryer setup and ready for corn a few days back.


Look at all those augers. All setup and ready to go !!


As long as I was up there I took a picture of the trees all turning colors. Looks pretty neat


Time to combine the test plot


Six rows at a time going one way for each variety.


At the end of each run we dump what was combined in a wagon with a scale so it could be weighed and recorded.


Once the weight was taken and recorded it got augered into our wagons.


All kinds of different colored corn in the plot lol.


Some of the corn we were combining was dry enough we put it directly into a bin for storage without running it through the grain dryer. That'll save some $$$$$ !!!


The stuff that was too wet to go right into the bin we still ran through the dryer. It looks rather neat at night

 

[jeepxj]

You can come up here and drone around all you want

We knocked out harvest quick so I went back to reality early. maybe next year?

I chickened out on the shot I was planning here. you can see the exact moment I did.

edit:

edit: had super dry corn as well. uncle only does batch drying with bins on 1800 or so acres. its a giant pain in the *** when its a wet year. load it up. wait 3 days. move it. repeat over and over.

 

[jblnut]

We knocked out harvest quick so I went back to reality early. maybe next year?

I chickened out on the shot I was planning here. you can see the exact moment I did.

edit:

edit: had super dry corn as well. uncle only does batch drying with bins on 1800 or so acres. its a giant pain in the *** when its a wet year. load it up. wait 3 days. move it. repeat over and over.

Those are really nice videos !!!

I was yelling at my screen "Go under the auger !!!" but you chickened out ... probably wisely I'd say. I would have smashed my drone into something if I tried that for sure ....

Those are really nice videos !!!

 

[jblnut]

The big bin was full enough to fill the old North bin so we got the auger setup to transfer corn over. It takes about 4hrs to transfer enough corn to fill the bin so it's not too bad. We figure it's easier than servicing an inclined roof auger and we only have to do it once a year.


Lots of augers


A few years back Pops dug in some silo staves where the wheels need to park so it's oh so much easier to line it all up now !!! There is another stave under the exact place the hitch pin hole on the tractor needs to be as well.


There were some pretty nasty wind gusts and it was blowing the dust out quite nicely


My phone makes it look all the same color but there is always a TON of dirt that comes out of the combine air filter each morning. If that Cummins can't breath she gets crabby !!!


Playing chicken on the road with Pops and the grinder mixer. We cleaned out the baler a few days ago and there was one full bale of bean straw in it so he brought it over to my place while mixing feed.


We got around 50 acres done in this field in one day while hauling the corn almost 6 miles back home.


20ish acres left to go and we'll be done on this particular farm. Whoo hoo !!


I didn't lift the head up high enough going through a waterway and the far right row unit found some dirt .... and a damn rock that stopped the whole works. I snagged it out of there, emptied the rock trap and went on my merry way.


I got one row off somehow


Mom sent me this picture while I was roading the combine to the next field. It takes up most of the road and it's quite fun meeting someone coming the other way


She also sent me this picture of Dad telling me how to run the combine


And this one of Dad putting dry corn right into the bin. He says he likes hauling loads because there is less thinking involved and he is less stressed than running the combine. Works for me !!!


He called while unloading one set of loads and said "Best check that the door is closed on the back wagon. I'm pretty sure I left it open when I left last time." The little wagons do not totally clean out because of the patches I put in them so there is always some corn left in them when we head back to the field. There is about that much corn left in them


The wind continued all day. It had blown the leaves sideways on the outside six rows !!!


I can't get the hopper totally full because of all the sidehills and such but that's about as full as it's been in a while


Mom snagged my favorite picture of Harvest 2020 so far last night

 

[jeepxj]

**** that's a good idea to use markers for where auger wheels should go.

 

[loganb]

Nice progress! We got beans finished up yesterday...not sure when the last time beans were done before corn was for us.

I think we should do your tire marking for the auger but use some rather stout poured concrete blocks to give us tie down points. Had an unexpected wind storm and lost a 113' auger after mother nature rolled it over and ruined the tube.

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[jblnut]

Little digital dance for 4,000 posts

Thank you everyone for following along and keeping this thing alive !!