Wife ran off to California and I'm sitting around drinking a beer with the two little dogs and we got to talking about farming....

A few pics from the last week.

Post up any garden/field pics from your neck of the woods!


Custom cutters making short work of our little wheat crop.













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Wow...

Ought to be some birds running around with all that food present...

Dang Sammo great pics....I ain't gonna embare ass myself by posting garden pics

We did some haying also. Hit the hills and are currently on 2nd cutting on the riverbottom.











And we did manage to sneak off for a morning to help pull a well and another morning to put it back together.




I'm gonna try and go bird hunt a little this weekend!

No way I can compete with those pictures. Thanks for posting them.

I guess I could take a picture of a shovel and my watering can.

Sam;
Thanks so much for sharing your farming photos with us and in so doing stirring up a bunch of fond fall memories for me.

The auger looks just like one we had back in the day, but for the life of me I can't recall the maker right now. It would reach to the top of the tallest Behlen bin we had, which was if memory serves right at 38' and would hold 30,000 bushels.

Anyway, my Mom said she talked to my brother the other night and they'd been swathing a bit and were going to try combining soon, so it is that time of year again isn't it?

Thanks again Sam and all the best to you and yours this harvest season.

Dwayne

Great pics, one of the reasons I love flying over the Midwest it just doesn't get any better!

Great pics Sam. Thanks. It kind of reminds me of heading the sorghum with a knife.

The wheat looks like money in the bank, Sammy. Congratulations

Dwayne, good to see you.

Dwayne, I wish we had a 30k bin, our entire wheat crop would have fit inside that!
10" Westfield auger BTW, unloads about a bushel a second. 15 minutes for a semi load of wheat. The big farmers have 13" or conveyors now.

Real fun job this afternoon, carrier bearing(right where the rear drive line pivots on the middle of the frame) went out on one the old Versatiles.


Gardening is just like farming!

We have about 90 sunflowers in the back yard. The birds are lovin' it right now.

Impressive. How would you rate this years crops compared to other years considering the U.S. drought situation?

Sam, can you take some pics of your Sunflowers?

Sam;
Thanks for the reply Sam, I don't envy the repair job ahead of you on that bearing.

I recall twisting an axle on our 935 and having to replace it. They were amazingly soft steel actually but I think they made them that way so they wouldn't bugger up the planetary gears.

Then there was the time an oil seal went out in the hub and I had to pump it full of grease....my brother shows up with a couple cases of grease tubes, an air powered grease gun and hands them to me saying something about hoping I didn't want to stay clean that day!

Gardening is a little like farming though I guess Sam, though when I pulled the starter off our little Japanese diesel tractor here, it didn't weigh enough to get my arm stuck like when the 935's started came off when I wasn't quite ready for it.

Ah, farm wrenching Sam, I've still got some aches and scars from it!

That auger isn't a Bergen by any chance is it?

Anyway, as with most things, the name of that long forgotten auger will come to me when it no longer matters or will make sense to me!

All the best Sam and thanks again.

Dwayne

Griz, we are taking advice on when to sell some wheat....grin

Russia is in a little trouble and might stop and exports. They are rumored to be down about 30% from last year's crop.




Rkamp, we were very lucky and caught some rain late this Spring and Summer. Not a bumper crop but it averaged around 32 bushel which is good for this area and the amount of fertilizer we put down. People to the south of us cut 20, people to the north are cutting 40-50 bushel. Rain and luck, farming is gamble every year.


Okok, my wife likes sunflowers and this was a first.

6' fence and some of them are in the 10-11' foot range. Wind blew one over so I had to rig up 100' of rope parallel freakish [bleep].

A couple weeks ago.

Those are spectacular!

Looks like ya'll had the better part of a 600' string out on the ground, at the point where that water well pic was snapped,....

Sam, if you have any more views of that pump rig, could you post em' when time allows ?

Looks to be a towed unit ?

Luck with that midship bearing, Bud.

GTC

great photos sammo enjoyed them

Fascinationg pix, Sammo.. A whole different world from strawberries, lettuce and artichokes.

Great pictures Sam

Good pics of your little grain operation. You were talking to the dogs tho??

Remember as a tike when dad was cattle ranching in Montana and decided to grow seed peas to keep his ranch alive. He took me out on the Cat with him waaay pre-cellphone days when something would break down, stuck me on his shoulders for a hike to the truck.

Sam,

I might have missed the top in corn, but it might have one more run. I hear all the corn farmers are buying puts, but they're always wrong, aren't they?
I don't have a strong feeling for wheat, but I know you'll never take a loss if you sell at a profit.
Good luck picking a top.

Dwayne, those starters are heavy! Always nice to get the top bolt in so it holds 'em.

I edited the earlier post, Westfield auger my dad bought from Zerbes out of Glasgow.



Ok, yeah they are nuts! Lots of water and a hot Summer.


Cross, I believe that well is 1000' deep. There was 37 sections of pipe when we put it back down. Pic was part way through the process.

I know zero about running that old pulling rig but it is a cool old machine. Wisconsin engine, Do All(?) gear box, ranch foreman bought it down in Wyoming for $500 I think. He replaced the cable and got the engine running. Spooky when it starts creaking under all that weight!








Thanks Randy!

yikes! we had a well truck that ran everything, man what a relief that was!
been a dry summer but all our fields look pretty good, I've heard a lot of compliments from our clients. I'll snap some pics tomorrow and post em. wouldn't believe there is a drought going on in the fields. rangeland is another story. thanks for posting Sam.

That pic is going on FILE,....

37 sticks of 2 1/4" is a fairly HEAVY string, looks like that beast is built RIGHT.

Thanks, Sam

GTC

The scale of everything in those scenes makes a guy smile. Nice pics!

Johnny, it really is a whole other world from how they do it farther west!


Thanks Bear, one of these days I would like to get a better camera but damn they are expensive for bouncning around in a pickup!


ID, yeah, I talk to the dogs. Conversation really gets good after 5 or 6 beers.....grin
Damn those cell phones but they can be handier than hell when you have a signal.
It is still really weird talking on a phone while gathering cows horseback though. I will never get use to that.


Griz, hard not to get greedy when it keeps going up!
My old man still has a little wheat leftover from last year to sell. Maybe it'll go up a little but chances are it might not...grin

Amen, brother.

Sam, I just wish I got to do a bit of farming - we haven't had enough water for more than A partial cutting in several years. Now that all my nephews are out of the house - I expect my brother'll get it done with his 11 year old daughter, if things don't change!

Mark

Colorado, that beer deal sounds like a plan. I've had a beer or two with Rancho and would like to have one with the rest of you guys!



Cross, I'm not sure but got to thinking that the entire works is held by the bolt that runs through the pulley on the top of the boom. If that bastard got wore and snapped, lookout!
Of course it must have a bushing or sleeve but [bleep] you wouldn't want to be under that thing with a full load of pipe hanging if it ever broke.


Sandcritter, some of the farmers out here are really cutting the wheat. My buddy and his dad(and their crew, 4-5 guys) will cut around 10,000 acres of wheat this Summer, some lease land but they also seed alot of their own. Took 3-4 days to cut our crop, gonna take them 3-4 weeks!

Cows are our main deal, my dad hates to sit in a tractor or swather.

This is what my cash crops look like. I'm slowly converting from 90% loblloly to eventually about 75% longleaf and 25% loblolly/shortleaf.

Griz, $10/bushel and a guy better be selling some quick!

Probably hang around $7-8 for the rest of the year.




Mark, that is rough. My brother has been going to UNLV for the last few years and said it is a very harsh climate when it comes to rain or the lack of it.
You guys go for months at a time with zero precip?


Nathan, that is pretty neat! Like Rancho mentioned earlier we have a pretty diverse ag base in our Country!

Sweet pics Sam! Don't run over any birds.

GFY.


Travis

Hope everybody doesn't head for the exit at the same time.
For ten bucks, let 'er rip.

No. In East, TX we get about 55-65" of rain per year with the wettest months being in the late winter/spring but never no precipitation unless it's a major drought like last year.

Just west of here - only about 1-1/2 hours away is the 35" rain line which pretty much coincides with I-35 which is pretty handy to remember. Right around there you stop growing trees. We are the very extreme western edge of southern yellow pine range.

I get to play with some fun toys from time to time like skidders and of course getting to burn can be a lot of fun as well. We've been playing around with different burn schedules at different times of the year to help the quail and turkeys. We just came out of a eastern wild turkey restoration project that lasted about 15 years. We're up to about 5-10 turkeys per year being killed in my county.....got a lot of room to go. We're fixing to start a black bear reintroduction program but it's very early on in that process. I've got my name in the hat as I have a chunk of land that met the requirements.

T'Flave, you know I'm a smooth operator!



Griz, we'll wait and see!



Nathan, I had beer fingers and got my typing mixed up. See edit above, I was refering to Mark in NV. Interesting about the trees though, that is Greek to me!

Same for growing wheat to me lol. It's just like farming I guess, we just plant and harvest 20-40 years apart.

My cigar tobacco operation in Ecuador (sorry for the crappy cell phone pics).

Now that is interesting!

Healthy looking crop and I don't see a weed.

Now, dat is fascinating.

Nice pics Sam.

Sam, what are folks givin for alfalfa hay around the Point?

Way, way cool. Thanks for sharing.

Old Trapper, I'm not really sure actually on alfalfa. It is hard to find though. First cutting was thin with all the weavil trouble and second cutting was sold early in the year. I would guess +$100-120/ton delivered local if you could even find any for sale. I know my dad was looking for some back in July and his usual grower said it was a tight supply.


Lots of CPR hay headed south, $60-80/ton plus freight on that I guess.

I got $100 for my regular Prairie and other grass hay this year. I just got done with a dab of CRP. I'm gonna charge the same old boy about half that. Maybe $60 or maybe $50. I ain't decided yet but it's not much of a decision.

Thanks for the pics Sam. I always enjoy seeing how other folks do it.

Nice pics Sam!
In the central part of NY here we are just getting at our third cutting of Alfalfa.
First cutting was fair.
Second with the combination of drought and potato leaf hoppers was a exercise in running over the fields with all the equipment to trim them off and a new growth started,
We then sprayed for the leaf hoppers and put a couple hundred pounds to the acre of $600- a ton fertilzer.
All that would of amounted to naught were it not for the rain and third is heavy.
Corn is shorter than normal but the rain came in time to make for good ears.
You don't have to drive far to see some pretty poor corn though.
Don't envy you the carrier bearing repair.
Chit like that happens.
Right in the spring push our main horse had a snap ring come loose in the final drive.
Not good.


Best to you on the harvest.

Man, that bearing job sure doesn't look like a walk in the park. Can't be cheap either. It's kind of funny when you hear 'slickers griping about the price of food. They think all you guys do is sit around for the summer waiting for the harvest checks to roll in. Everyone ought to have to spend a season down on the farm doing what you guys do to make a living. I think they'd have a different view on things.

On an unrelated note, I drove by one of the farms I hunt 'yotes on yesterday. They had cut the field on Sunday, and hadn't bailed it yet. Sure enough, there was a 'yote out there in broad daylight oblivious to all the cars going by, just having a good old time mousing. I stopped for a few minutes and saw him get one. It's a good time of year to be a 'yote I guess.

[quote=gophergunner]Man, that bearing job sure doesn't look like a walk in the park. Can't be cheap either. [/quote)

Yeah, the parts bill approached $10,000.
A good part of the day on the phone got me the biggies used $2500-. My time isn't worth anything so I ended getting it fixed for under $3000- .
The real job was getting it from the field to the shop as that tire was set up in place. I almost ended up doing the repair in the field.
Thank the Lord for my neighbor the excavator. Even so it was touch and go getting it on the trailer and off in the shop. Glad I went with a 16' ceiling.

That looks like a mess. Hopefully you got her back in the field asap.

Lately we've been working on second cutting and reseeding a few fields.

Just a few cellphone haying pics.

Ethan, they opened up alot of CRP around here, of course you can't cut everything but just part of a field. It's a good thing too, some of those fields need to be cut, lots of old growth and they will come back nice next spring.


FVA, now that is a job! Damn, good luck with it, way too many parts there for me to remember how to put back together.

We basically just clipped our entire first cutting also. Weavils chewed the hell out of it. Some guys sprayed but a guy really hates to do that, kill all the good bugs and I'm not even sure about how the birds would do with the spray. Maybe it doesn't hurt them but I don't know.


GG, the yotes and birds(hawks/gulls) think the toolbar or swather is a dinner bell!
This Spring I was seeding some hay barley and came upon a killdeer and her little chicks. Damn gulls were following me around so I turned real quick before they saw the chicks. Didn't seed that part of the field, my dad wondered what the hell when a bare patch showed up later on but at least the gulls didn't kill the chicks.



Ben, cool pics, how do you like that baler?
Netwrap sure is alot faster when making a bale. I've heard it's like having 1.5 balers in the field compared to 1 twine baler.

Can't post pics but we are done with about 3000 acres and only 800 to go. Wheat went about 40 or so and canola about 30 bushels per acre. DAMN good crop for no rain. Being to wet last year paid off this year. Crossing fingers because we haven't had a breakdown with a combine this year yet. ED K

Sam- We just got that baler this year. Its pretty badass, it eats hay almost as fast as you can throw it at it. Its got a wide head, bale kicker, and a computer with automatic netwrap. When your bale gets to size, the computer beeps, you push in the clutch, the baler wraps the bale (maybe 30 sec.) you open the door and your on the way. You can start full bore from where you left off. With our old string baler it was pretty tough to get over 125 bales in a day. We have done 200 a few times with this machine, if we dont run into any problems.

FVA- Parts can be crazy. last week my brother went over a diversion ditch at a wierd angle with the discbine, the front plastic PTO cover expanded to far, did not slide back over itself and got scrunched up. We were like no biggie it'll cost 30 bucks. We my dad got off the phone with a New Holland dealer and the quote was $460. That was just for the plastic, no idea how much it would cost if the actual shaft went.

Pard owns about 400ac and hobby farms about 100 of it:









No Semis or grain trucks. It's 200bu gravity boxes and pickups.

Thanks SamO. The weevils got half of my alfalfa. I got half a crop worth twice as much. Wheat around here looked about like yours.

The Juneberries were great though. ;-{>8

Great pics all, and this should be required reading & viewing for the folks that don't where there food comes from or how it is handled.

Lots of my friends farm......

Here's some from the Palouse.






last one is cutting dry peas the other day with lots of smoke in the air from the fires around.

This is the same field as the 3 tractors are plowing in, looking the other way.

Interesting photos - thanks Sam!

Many thanks to all who posted the pictures. It is always great to see where our food comes from and the people who produce it. More threads like this would be welcomed by me and I'm sure by others.

This photo especially was great as it brought back memories of combining wheat with my John Deere 95 square-back combine 35 years ago in Minnesota.

Interesting photos worked one harvest driving an old KW with a spud bed hauling potatoes from the potato digger to the storage sheds down at SimTag, a 65 thousand acre farm near Irrigon, OR.

Over the years drove Semi out of the Columbia Basin in Eastern Washington all over WA, OR, ID and MT with a trip or two as far East as MN. I think at one time or another I've had either Semis or Truck and Trailers on cow trails no self respecting cow would be found dead on.

The weevils were really hard on our alfalfa too. Good thing we could get CRP to hay, we ended up putting up 1700 round bales of the stuff. With all of the CRP coming out these days I wonder about wildlife cover for the future. We're going start farming about 13 quarters of CRP that has been in the program for 20+ years and they wouldn't let it back in.

The last year I got to go north with a combine crew was 1958, operating a model 55 John Deere. No cab, no power steering, and no radio. Lots of changes have been made since then. And I sure would like to try running one of these modern day JDs.

Maaan, that baby was self propelled.

Sam - wrong Las Vegas!! I'm in NE New Mexico - only been in drought conditions since '99, but the last 2 years have been the worst on record!

Mark

Sam, how would you like to be about to combine 1600 acres of cotton in the south and looking at 15 in. of rain.?

Great and beautiful pic there WS.

Thanks for sharing the pics everyone, beautiful country Wageslave.



Ben, the extra wide pickup reel would be nice. That bale command really is handy. We use a well worn 660(like 20k bales on it) and a 688. NH sure make good haying equipment.

Net wrap would be great for baling but if you have any carry over bales it can get windblown and sort of come apart. We have some 1-2 year old straw bales with net wrap and they will be tricky to handle this Winter.


C Hell, do you guys feed up all that CRP hay or is it sold?
Lots of CRP coming out and going back into production. We have some 20 miles north of town but it is sandy ground and a pain in the ass to move machinery up there. Kinda nice just to have it for partial haying when things get tight.

How is the oil impact up there?

Not much here, they are skirting around the rez which is fine with us.



Bigbuck and Old Trapper, here's one for you guys.
Not a 55 but she's pretty sweet...grin

That's almost the same combine I learned on. Melroe pickup and everything.

The pic is from N MN half-way between TRF and the CA border.

Sam, looks like that old dude could stand a little TLC.

Bet he could tell some pretty good stories.

Mark, I need to pay better attention! Damn that is rough, hopefully you guys pull out of the drought sometime soon.

Eyeball, I know zip about cotton harvesting, will that ruin the crop?

Is shrapnel standing on that hilltop?


Travis

Yeah, Shrap and Jesus had a picnic.

10-4

I imagine any rain whatsoever would not help quality once it's ready to cut. 15" is insane.



Bigbuck, I'm not even sure the make of that machine?

From what I can see, it looks like an old International. My old boss used to team up with a guy that had three of them. About like most of em back then, they had to be worked on all the time.

we hauled out 2 old combines for scrap this summer, here are a couple pics of my "office"



irrigated vs non irrigated








Everything we plant gets left for wildlife with the exception of some hay, it gets cut late august (so nesting birds aren't bothered) and a shot of water brings it up just right for the deer this fall.

Sam O, We do feed up all of that CRP hay. When all that stuff comes out it going be hard to get enough hay up in our area.

The oil stuff is absolutley crazy my house which is 17 miles out of town is dead center of the oil activity. We got all three drilling rigs within 5 miles of my house. And a mancamp less then a mile from my doorstep. The gravel roads just don't take this kind of traffic the roads are so wash boardy you can just feel your vehicle falling apart.

Buck, it's red, that's all I know. Might be an old McCormick, thinking IH bought them out? Hell if I know.



CO, nice office, bet the birds and critters appreciate your efforts!

Southwest of Roseau?

I used to farm near Litchfield.

No, he was in Livingston that weekend.
Just Jesus and William Devane's gold there.

C, you are up around PW?

That's obviously not real good deal with the roads and mancamp.

Well I guess if a guy has mineral rights it would be tolerable but otherwise not.


From all the reports/rumors I hear the Bakken formation thins out down here, that and tribal politics slow chit down.

http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=7023067&

I think that's pretty close. It may be a bit older model than that.



My 95.

I would say that if you are running a combine through cotton, you've got bigger problems than 15" of rain.

Looks very similar to the one I had except mine was a 95 Corn Special. They are a good macine for sure.

Is that a 15' header on it? Does it have variable speed on the reel?

Thanks for posting that picture.

"About like most of em back then, they had to be worked on all the time."


Bigbuck, now I know you were really there. Ha.


SamO, if ya check that precious vintage machine, I think I carved my initials in the reel bats. Or it might be any of thousands just like it when I was a kid. And as Bigbuck said it was always a debate about which color was broke down least. They were all broke down most. All required regular enemas.

EE, that thing has one of them new fangeled cabs, for crying out loud.

I always tried to get the one with an umbrella and one of them canvas, self cooling water bags.

Here's one in a bit better condition.

NICE!


There is a labor of love. I never knew a combine could have tires that new.


He deserves that ribbon.

Angostura?

yes

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I LOVE that picture !

.....would OSHA chit a green turd over THAT, or what ?

Missed buying a big old Drill press that had open bevel gears, and open belts,.......

guess the "assumption" was that one would have common sense, and luck enough to keep himself clear of the moving apparatus.

Been out watering the little Orchard / Garden under a cool Southwesterly and the 3/4 Moon,.... reflecting on all of the comments about the importance of folks actually UNDERSTANDING where food comes from, and all of the risk, travail, and heartache attendant.

Farming, Ranching, Gardening,......gotta' be the ultimate "Act of Faith".

I'd venture that there's one hell of a lot more to be learned about courage, strength and dedication out there in the dirt and the elements than one's going to get in some "Chapel" from somebody in "Vestments".

Not knocking chapels, just saying that for some, they are where you find them,.....and oftimes lack walls, or roofs.

GTC

Nice post, Greg. Plus one.

Them ol chatter-bangers were all multicapable human cuisinarts.

I honestly think I see a lot more farmers these days with all their limbs and digits.

Augers used to eat a lot of folks.

You ever work on a steel spar 'High line' logging show ?

....or a 60's vintage offshore drilling rig ?

rigged and spotted "high steel" as an ironworker / welder ?

it was the way things were across the board, and farming equipment didn't have any 'edge' when it came to being employed around moving or rotating equipment.

God bless em', farmers just work to damned hard, and don't have a sensible "Push" to tell em' to take a break.

Auger and Bin Sweep dittos.

BTDT.

GTC

You're welcome. Yes, I believe the header is indeed 15 feet. And yes, it's a variable speed reel.

I grew up on the 55's that my Uncle's had. I can barely remember the old Allis Chalmers, about like this one, that we used before that. Seems like I can remember riding on it.

http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=6907675&

Seems like it was like a "45 All Crop" or some such.

Then my Uncles got their first John Deere, an old round backed 45 or 55, I disremember. That was traded on a squareback with a cab and another newer squareback was added. The old Allis just sat out in the brush until my cousin took it to the salvage yard a few years back.

I started my operation with an ancient Gleaner A with no cab. I then got an E that had an add-on cab. The E lacked power badly. This machine was a neighbors. He bought it new somewheres in between '68 and '70. It's supposedly some sort of Quick Attach, but I've never had the head off and don't intend to unless I have to. The 55's were a beech to change. This one was used for the neighbor's 200 acres and that's it, so it really doesn't have a lot of hours on it. Gasser.

Sam- Yea New Holland makes good equipment. Our last baler was a Gehl 1470, it had about 25k through it.

The new baler makes a dense bale so hopefully the carry over bales wont shrink and cause the netwrap to get too loose. i guess the only way is to wait and see.

Overall, it seems like a big improvement.

Enjoyed your pics, freedumb1.

The old abandoned farmsteads always make me think there has to be a covey of huns around.

On a more serious note, they always remind me that the things I think are so important will also go that route. Makes a guy take himself a bit less serious and maybe focus more on the people and not the stuff.

Sam, thanks for the pics, sure is beautiful country!

My Father-in-law had an Allis 90 combine he pulled with a D-17. That was a dusty job because you sat so low on the tractor. He had orange blood in his viens though and thought it was the real deal.

The first self propelled combine I had was a 45 roundback with no cab. Insullated coveralls were my best friend on cool fall mornings while combining corn and beans. Eventually it usually warmed up enough I could scale back to a hooded sweatshirt. It was a welcome change to combine in a short sleeve shirt with the 95.

My headers were always on concrete so as a result sat nice and level which aided in changing them. I could change from beans to corn in about 3/4 hour to 1 hour but that was leaving the filler plates in the cylinder which of course came out for wheat. A neighbor had a 95 with a quick-tach feeder housing and used the same heads as the John Deere 4400 did. He said he could change from beans to corn in about 20 minutes.

Few people around where I was had Gleaners or New Holland machines. John Deere and International had nearly all the combine business. I ran John Deeres not because of a green paint frenzy but because the were four different dealers withing a 20 mile radius and one of them stayed open 24 hours a day during harvest time. Because of this I never was held up too long for parts which really helped to get the crop out in a timely fashion.

Our old Iron club will have its annual threshing bee and show here in a couple of weeks and I'll be pitching wheat bundles into a threshing machine. I get a kick out of doing this but I sure am glad the combine came along. I was just barely old enough to work on threshing crews before they were replaced with combines. The best part about them were the meals that were prepared. Man could those farm wives cook!!

Freedumb1

Thanks from me also for your pictures, especially the abandon buildings. I also always wonder while traveling through the country why certain places were abandon. To me it is kind of sad because no doubt at one time these places were someone's pride and joy. But I guess it just proves progress isn't always pretty but it will still go on.

I located some good info on McCormick-Deering and International Harvester today. Seems like M-D was sort of a branch of IHC until sometime in the 1920s or so then they all became one big outfit.And it was after WWII that John Deere finally outsold IHC. Now IHC is gone but JD is still going strong.

My first year with a custom combiner was 1953. I quit a good job with North American Aviation in L.A. to go run that old Massey Harris. Glad I had sense enough to leave there. Then my boss went back to JD, then tried a Case, then an Oliver, and back to JD. I thought the Oliver was the best but the JD 55 wasn't bad.

Them's some mighty fine farm type pictures.

Yeah I remember those well, later than '58 tho . That would have been the old round backs. Remember my dad running those ....and scratching like a dog with fleas combining barley.

Hauled grain for my uncle from one of the old 65's that had the engine rather than PTO .

Ah yes, barley.

Tremendous thread, this.

growing up in the deep south,.... surrounded by Orchards and small Truck Farms had in NO way prepared me for what I found later on the Northwestern Prairies and Foothill slopes.

It sure captivated my imagination, and energies!

My old bud Stan Rogers did a pretty good song about the whole deal

Wish ya hadn't said that as I started itchin' all over again!

Never was sure which caused the most itching; barley or oats. Both plenty bad.

Pictures 1 through 4 are farms I drive by while traveling for work.
Picture 5 was burned down and plowed the following day to turn a 112 acres of Iowa farmland into 120. My grandparents purchased the farm during the 1930's depression. The house was always a corn crib when I was growing up. (Plenty of pheasants used to hang around.) When my 96 year old grandmother passed away in 2-2011, it sold for $8,000 an acre to a young farmer in the area who rented it for the last 10 years.

I still have some boards I removed from the house, and occasionally make a frame out of them.

Yeah thats the truth - any of you fellows remember emptying those old square, wooden granaries ? A pleasure that had to be experienced to be believed at about 90F

Oh yeah, Lorne, shoveled out many. That's why folks risked the use of a naked drag auger in those death traps. They always had wires going through them that held them together. When that auger hit a wire there was a commotion that could easily leave ya looking like the loser of a knife fight with a gang. I hope that is truly a chapter of history and not goin on any more.

we had john deere's A & B and a international "allways stuck" 350 bucket loader........we had to ride the hay rake and stomp the lever with our foot to make the windrows....the rake was mod'ed to pulled by a tractor...cause it was made to be pulled by horses. I do not miss farming period.

Yup, when I wanted to quit organic chemistry class, I had being a farm hand to fall back on. Then I was off to the lab.

Hi Greg,

Did you really know Stan, or are you being figurative? Just wondering... I know you spent time in Canada, so perhaps you knew him. I have only met his brother Garnet, and he seems like a helluva nice fellow (with a voice much like his brother's).

I saw Stan Rogers perform live once at the Winnipeg Folk Festival (about 1978?). I wish I had discovered him earlier, so that I might have seen more of him.

Great song, Field behind the plow.

If I have had a wee dram o' rum, I can't help singing along whenever I hear Barrett's Privateers:



John

That it is.

Here is some more from my area.
I even dug out some oldies of when I helped on the farm.
And some more of friends, and a couple off the net.






Bridge near Colfax Wa.
[img]http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n581/Wageslave11/tn_480_Covered_bridge_a_jpg.jpg[/img]

It appears that Idaho is "Gleaner" country. Is that still true today?

Mostly Big Green around here.

I looked at some farming stuff today. thru the ears of my pony.....

I think they are all gone now, thank God.

A lot of them had the two sets - one about 2 - 3 feet off the floor the other 6-8 feet. Death traps.

We survived them and had few get caught in them - but then the hogs et most of the slow kids here before they got into grade school

It was all good - I'd do that for 3-4 days for my uncle and he'd peel off 10$ ; maybe 20$ - figured I had the world by the butt

Yo Slave


"Here is some more from my area.
I even dug out some oldies of when I helped on the farm.
And some more of friends, and a couple off the net."

Them's some mighty good pics but they really ain't "oldies" cause they gots cabs and stuff.

I was through your neck of the woods several years ago during wheat harvest time and was completely amazed at the combines, as to how they kept the threshing mechanism level all the time. And I still don't understand how they do it but they do. Looks pretty scary watching them work on the steep sidehills. Quite a feat!

Pretty good lookin' sights ya got there.

I grew up liking Gleaner and running them, so I'm showing my preference.

Bunch of Deere and Red here also.

How many bottoms you pulling?

True. Maybe I should take some pics of 36 JD or 51 IH.
I thought over 30 years was old but.........maybe not.
Hydraulics and swiveling headers are amazing aren't they.
Take care.

Well, ya know, us old goats think anything younger than us ain't really old.

How does that leveling system work? Is it automatic or operator controlled? Pretty amazing either way and probably adds quite a bit to the cost over a regular machine.

In a Gleaner, IH and later Deere they used a mercury leveling board. The board in the cab was hooked to the leveling valve and electricity flows through the mercury and activates the hydraulics when the mercury is not level.
You could also manually activate it, but the auto is in constant flux and you would tire very soon of manual operation with everything else you are trying to keep up with.

I should add, Gleaner, IH and Deere still have a hillside option.
The mercury board went away in production machines in the late 80's I believe.
These machines had up to 48% leveling capacity.

They have an electrical switch system now that activates the hydraulic pump.
27% leveling now.

Not all machines run in the hills now days are hillside.
They dual up the front and go without.

I have a CR9070 New Holland and the insides of the combine are self leveling to a certain point. Helps save the grain on side hills. ED K

Great pics and comments!

Wage, I take it you guys don't get many thunderstorms/downpours of rain?

You wouldn't be able to farm slopes like that around here with our soil/climate. The erosion would be terrible, we have certain fields where a guy needs to 'work the washes' out of the summerfallow every year.
Pull a toolbar over them and fill back in as best as possible. Better yet is leaving a grass waterway.

I've been summer fallowing the last couple days, hot and windy, perfect weather for killing weeds.

Problem is I was using a different tractor and it was running hot. Turn off the A/C and the engine will run about 5 degrees cooler so that's what I did.
It must have been +130F inside the cab(sauna), feels chilly when you step out into 95F fresh air!




They started on this mess last April/May. Really nice little project that goes 2 miles across this piece of land. I spent an hour yesterday picking rock by hand. Ground is beyond hard, toolbar won't even touch it, maybe it'll work up next Spring if we get some rain on it.

Yup, attended a few after concert "all Nighters" that left one's throat raw from song, and whiskey.

What a loss to the Canadian Folk Scene,......we built a Log Amphitheater / stage in his honor.

http://www.canmore.ca/Recreation-Parks-and-Facilities/Bookable-Parks/Stan-Rogers-Stage.html

Yeah, they use a leveling shoe in conjuction with 27% machine leveling on some models around here.
I guess leveling shoes are age old technology.
Some of the older boys here can probably confirm that on old pull machines.

It's just a pendulum hanging down hooked to the swiveling sections of the sieve.
Then they play some games with a wind fan blowing chaff uphill, across the shoe.

Liking the pics, Sam.
Beautiful country.

The Palouse varies in rainfall.
Say 16 to 24 inches a year in different spots.
Most of the higher rainfall areas are continuous crop.
By that, I mean, fall wheat, spring grain and/or a legume.
Some are three year rotation and some just two.

Of course the erosion helped form these hills in the great floods after the ice age.
Glaciers caused alot of soil movement too.
Anyway, this soil is heavy compared to Montana and alot of other places.
I've been in wet Montana soil gopher hunting and it is totally different than here.
That said, a thunderstorm or heavy rain will surely move dirt and ditch up the hillsides. Freeze and thaw with snowmelt also. Some no-till and that has helped.
In the old days, when there was ALOT of fallow in the rotation,
erosion was bad.
Lucky the good soil is deep here or there wouldn't be any left to farm.
I remember running the N7 for an afternoon,A/C out and climbing
out on the roof while unloading in the buggy and 95 degrees felt great, so I hear you there.

They tried dryland corn here for a bit about 13 years ago.
Not humid enough and gets cool to early at night to make it pay.

Some friends cutting barley and waiting on trucks.

Here's a couple pics of my great grandpa's and grandpa's 55's.







Nothing but good memories of Grandpa Chuck. Took me gopher hunting, minnow trapping, let me have a sip of Bailey's once in awhile. He is still blowing around out in those hills.

Nice looking memorial.

An old roundback with a Hercules engine.

Sam, more good pics. Those old JDs look pretty tired but I bet they did their share of work back in the day. There were none around with factory cabs when I was operating them. Once in a while you would see where some guy took a old pickup cab and tried make something out of it but I never saw one that looked "classy." And after some of them added a cab, they had no way of getting rid of the heat. Problems.

Machinery sure has come a long way.

There's an old threshing machine parked below my folk's place.

The 55's make that thing look fairly modern...grin



Griz, Grandpa Chuck is also swimming around Lake Pend Oreille.
My Grandma lives up there, it is their second favorite place. World away from eastern Montana, green year round.

I'm guessing those are real early factory cabs or Hiniker add-ons. I don't know what year JD started with their own cabs, but Hinikers were real popular around here. I believe my 95 is the last year they were made. It doesn't have a/c but it has a blower. I believe those blowers were as much to pressurize the interior of the cab and keep the dust from sifting in as they were for helping cool it. Mine's got the same engine as the big engine on the 55 but the fuel is turned up way more. It revvs pretty high and you have to watch it or you'll blow really light seeds out. I think my 1967 Gleaner E had a Hiniker Add On cab.

You see more threshin' machines around here now, for decoration, than you ever did when I was a kid. I'm guessing a lot more people bought those together and held them collectively, whereas most people back in the sixties and seventies had their own combines.

Sam, I was just a pup back in the threshing machine days but I did get in some "watchin" time. Yeah, things have changed.

Rode a '59 Model A Gleaner with a 12 1/2 ft head a lot of years as a kid, no cab! Man you haven't lived till you spend a few days cutting oats or milo in a closed in river bottom field with no cab! That reel just throws the the itchy stuff in your face and there's nothing you can do about it. Uncle had a 45 JD, he and Dad would have a competition to see who could put the cleanest grain in the truck with the least thrown over onto the ground. That old A never lost.
Dad finally traded it off on an "F" with a cab about the time I graduated high school. Wouldn't spring for the air conditioner though. Put a combine that is prone to overheating, (that 292 Chevy was underpowered), surround the driver with glass 270 degrees, summer time temps in the triple digits and I'll show you a driver that spends as much time out on the step platform as he can manage. Man that was rough!

My first combine was an ancient A with no cab. I bought it from my Dad's cousin who lived out by Enid and I went out there and picked it up with our '65 Ford two-ton. It was a long drive home.

SamO, ya come from a pretty swanky fam. First cabs I have ever saw on a 55, we had ta wait for a 95.

My dad died without ever having air conditioning in his house but always found something to do on his tractor on real hot days once it had an air conditioned cab. Good thing hot days are great for killin weeds. Sorry about your AC. Seems like a cab without AC is just so much the worse.

That can on the stack almost brought a tear to my eye. Reminded me of how my dad always asked when I got to the house if I remembered to put the can on the stack. Thanks.

One other thing, SamO, I recognize your Gpa's name. A lot of folks here might not be able to imagine that, but NE Mont is as geographically vast as it is socially small.


Again, thanks for the memories.

That sums it up well OldT.

It used to be a pretty happening place about 40 years ago but anymore it is rare for young people to stick around.

Both sides of my family have been here for close to 100 years but my nearest sibling or cousin lives about 600 miles away.


Ole, gettin' itchy just thinking about that!

Great thread!

huh, didnt realize you were family with the Matejovsky's......seems most the "old families" all hit here bout the same time cause both sides of my family hit here shortly before WWI aswell.....

My great grandfather homesteaded north of Scobey in 1910, three years before the current town of Scobey existed. Lotta influx about then.

Our local threshing bee is about a week and a half away but here are some pics from last year.

Putting all the belts in place first thing in the morning. They are stored in the back of the machine where the door is open overnight. The fellow in the blue shirt used to own the machine before he sold it to our club. He is still pretty spry for being 84 years old.






Belted up and waiting for the machine to come up to speed.



Vern signals that everything is ready for us to start pitching bundles in.



In go the bundles, we are threshin wheat. I do this for fun now, although I did also do it in my early teens over 50 years ago. I don't remember it being so much fun back then though.

[img]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b139/Idared/6-7.jpg[/img]

Cool pics.

You guys musta done quite a tune-up on that ol separator to get it to spit out those square bales. ;-{>8

Idared, the Amish around hear would motgage their homes for that machine I'd bet. The local community has 1 or 2 now and they move from farm to farm. Not so much out of a sense of community as lack of usable machines. I'm told they bought the last one somewhere in Ontario and paid to have it shipped down. They run theirs off a deisel engine on a roll a round dolly.

Yes, the machine is in nice shape. About the only thing we have had to do on it lately is rework the feeder chain and put new splices in some belts. It helps that it has spent most of its life under a roof in a shed.



That reminds me of something that happened a few years ago at one of the threshing bees. A friendly disagreement started between two folks that the Fairbanks Morse engine below could not possibly run the threshing machine. So in order to settle it, the engine was belted up and to many folks surprise it handled the load. The bad part was everyone was so focused on whether or not it would work no one thought to take a picture before all the grain was threshed.