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That's nice, Richard!

Sure doesn't take long to spend something north of a hundred grand, does it?

I have never seen a 77?

I like this thread, you fellas live in a different world. I get up, drive to work, punch in, work 10 hours ( we work 4-10 hr days in the summer), punch out drive home. I bet you all work sun up to sun down a lot. Do you have people that work for you or do you do all the work yourself?

I only hire day workers when I need to. Otherwise, it all falls to me. (I'm the cheapest labor there is...)

I have a lot of help.

More or less full time hired man. He retired out of the National Guard and went to Iraq. He is fine help...even for his age!


Mother watches the kids a lot.

Wife puts in as many hours on the place as I do....we work side by side. We have different areas we focus on, but work together a lot.


The kids are with us a lot too.

Dad does quite a bit of tractor driving. He does a lot of the seeding, and pulls a rake in the summer.

The quintessential farming family! Too friggin' bad a guy can't get paid for doing it...

Some do. Most operations like that are handed down. You may not get rich if you stay and help operate the family farm/ranch, but when it's your turn at the helm, and you have a kid or two that may be interested in carrying on the legacy, it pays dividends...

I've seen some that would kick the kids out on their own because the parents knew there was just not enough land to farm or ranch to make a living for everyone.

If you get to stay, and want to stay, then you are blessed and lucky.

We have been here since 1914.

She aint paid for yet!

Well, thats not completely true. Mom and Dad burned their mortgage a few years ago. He bought his grandfather's place and then added quite a bit.

Took them 40 years or so.

We bought a good bit of my grandfather's place from his daughter several years after he died.....with help from my folks.


I dont know why, but for what ever reason there are not many places around here, generational or not, that are paid for. Even the homesteads!

Hence the old saying... "If I won the lottery, I'd just keep ranchin' til it was gone!"

"Me, an' the bank".

I had a friend say the other day that this little spot in Montana is the only place where you can buy land for appraised value!

I had a deer lease in Coleman county. The old farmer we leased from told us a lot about how he farmed in the 40’s 50’s and 60’s. He rotated wheat, Cotten and milo on his land. He was leasing his farming out by the time we got on his place. He had sheep also. He said it would take him two weeks to disc and seed. The guys he leased to would show up with their equipment on Saturday afternoon, in 8 hours they would be gone. Newer, better equipment has made it possible to do a lot more by yourself I guess, but I know you guys work you asses off. Those of us that eat the food you raise appreciate you! How do you not worry yourself to death about getting enough rain or too much. Mr. Sparks talked about the weather a lot. He used to say, boys we need a little timely rain, not no damn gulley warsher, just a good soakin rain! He finally passed away and his kids sold the place. I was on there for 25 years. He was the only farmer-rancher I’ve ever talked with at length, that’s why I enjoy this thread. You all live in a world few of us understand.

Mr. Sparks hated deer. There were so many, the first 20 rows didn’t produce anything. The deer ate it. They didn’t eat the green foliage on the Cotten, but they ate the blooms. It was nothing to see 150 deer in the winter wheat, forty or more bucks out there. The places I hunt now are dog crap compared to that lease.

heck Jim, at the cost of farm equipment, paid help, having to expand, and the short margins you folks work with it's a wonder we here get to eat anything you folks produce.

Thanks all for the pics and stories everyone. Keep up the hard work.

As for rain, this part of the world is pretty wet considering. 11.48" for the water year, 8.39 for the calendar year on the official site at the local airport. I've got a bit more on my home recorder. Usual for around here is 12-15 for the whole year. This year's wet spring is driving me batty though. Weed whacked the firebreak around the house twice already and will have to do it again I think. So much soil moisture the grass and weeds just keep growing after cutting. Usually brown by now. But it beats living where I have. That place averaged 4" or less a year. When it came it was in buckets too, as in 2.5" in 40 minutes.

Thunderstorms predicted for tonight and tomorrow a 50% chance of rain . Alfalfa and hay farmers have stuff on the ground, hope they get it up today.

Good luck with all your crops this year folks,

Geno

Ha! That's the truth. We make enough on the goats to pay for feeding the horses....and almost pay for my shooting (and associated buying) habit. We get paid crap (literally) for the land we rent to someone for crops...he spreads chicken litter on our pasture in exchange for land rent. Really, I appreciate him doing it and it works well for both of us. My pastures are lush....only downside is I can't turn the horses out on it or they swell up like a tick in a bucket of blood.

Beer and two burgers down. Time to head back out!

62 rolls of 4x5. Not a lot but will get me through winter most likely . I may do a fall cutting also. We will see. All the rain this spring lowered the yields on hay.

Combing wheat on my farm. Took this from my front porch.

That nice, James!

I spent some time on a JD combine... But it was an old fixer header. Took a licking and kept on ticking.

I hope that combine has a GOOD AC!

I got the last of my corn in yesterday, been playing around mudholes for 3 weeks, and we got another inch of rain last night, it washed the dust off of my truck.

Saw the first guy cutting alfalfa yesterday here in northern North Dakota. Didn't look to bad. Ed k