Anyone turning a wheel yet?


I heard the upper/midwest is wet and still thawing out?


We are gonna try and pre-work some stubble tomorrow. Drag the toolbar w/harrow around the fields where we fed cows last winter. Kill little weeds and bust up the cow chits.


Saw a guy today out in the hills pulling an air drill, guys are spreading fertilizer.


Getting a little dry here already!

they grow stuff here year round.

Sam, I worked up 18 acres for oats today.

Roger, I know man, let me clarify..

Anyone north of oh....say....... Nebraska........grin

Richard, lookin' good, that is a start!

I don't see much dust....

We hauled a bull, and some cows to the Dunlap sale this morning. We saw several putting on NH3.

Bull market is up around here.

85-90 cents, over 90 for the good fatties.


We actually have two that my dad is gonna haul to town tomorrow afternoon while I sit in the tractor.


Speaking of bulls we had a friend buy us a couple down in Billings at the Midland bull test. One is from Wisconsin and one is from Minnesota.


Haven't seen 'em yet.

Sam, the cow market is not so good.

May I be so bold as to ask what the bulls cost?

A little tilling around here. Was down by Hershey this weekend, farmers have done burn down on most fields. Probably plant soon, their season is usually 2+ weeks before ours, just 100 miles west. Been pretty wet, as soon as it starts to dry, it rains.

I saw a lot of field work in western PA, yesterday. Sunday and Monday were the only dry days so far this year. Not rain every day, but not good drying weather for clay soil. It rained again today, so it will be a few more days.

I have 4 acres to plant hay. I didn't get it done in Fall.

The nieghbor cut his first cutting of hay in front of my place last night, sure seems damn early, but she’s been mid 70’s all week, supposed to hit 80 Thursday ....

probably no field work in these parts for a couple of weeks yet......

I took my land roller over to my driest looking hay field.

As I was pulling into the field the roller sort of tipped and blew a transport tire and busted the whole center out of the rim.


I was THIS close to getting started today.........

We went to Helena yesterday for an Immigration meeting.

Not a wheel turning all the way down there.


On the way back home this morning there was a guy out spreading fertilizer with a little cart.

Between Loma and Big Sandy.

The story of my life Jim.

finally planted a 1 1/2# corn in the garden. Its been a wet spring.

Now to battle my arch nemesis' of the garden. Coons and crows.

planted Peaches and Cream again this year. White/ yellow sweet corn. Delish.

Richard, they were both under $5k. Nothing crazy. I am really curious to get a look at them.
Hoping the big canner bulls bring $2k apiece.





Thank you all for the reports!

Interesting to hear how it is going in various parts of the country.



Jim, a guy is always wondering WTF is gonna break next!

lol



Just when you get some momentum going.....

The reported 4" deep soil temp here in the south of Iowa was 46 degrees Sunday. It's made 70 degrees the last 3 afternoons-and there are a few guys that can't stand to wait any longer. A few planters are running. Lots of gas being pulled and primary tillage.

We’re all done with land leveling and have started creasing. Early sweet corn is going in the ground very soon.

Finished the anhydrous on Saturday. Would have been planting today but my boy had his wisdom teeth pulled this morning and I've been nursing him back to the living.

Nothing rolling in this area. Son-in-law farms in the Red River Valley and hopes to get rolling this weekend or first part of next week.....

Is that similar to "corrugating"?

Making a groove for the little siphon tubes?

Don’t think anything is going on here yet.

Wow a Li'l Abner allusion.

Joe Btfsplk to be exact.

Sam,

My dad planted some of the seeds from this watermelon today hoping to grow a large one for the Watermelon Festival in July.

That is a big one!

No wheels turning on my place. Was going to put in 37 acres of oats last week, but got 7 inches of snow. Got some relatives that have ground in the sandy Wisconsin river valley and their oats went in a couple of weeks ago and emerged and got covered with poor man's fertilizer...snow.

I should have the oats in by this Friday.

If I had a nickel...

Sam,

Mature tomato plants ain't for sale yet so my farming has to wait a few more weeks.

The Boise valley is warm and dry. The sugar beets and onions all went in about the 1'st week of Apr, which is a couple weeks late. But the fields were too wet before that. There was a dry spell early in March which let most of the guys get the cereal grains in. Corn has been going in as fast as the guys can get across the fields for the last ten days.

We have had no rain for about three weeks. So things are drying out fast. I spent a three day weekend on the tractor in a T shirt and straw hat last Fri-Sun. 80 degrees predicted for Wed-Fri.

I am resetting gated pipe as quick as possible and irrigating pastures and hay fields since Sunday.

Again, thank you all for the reports.


Flave, #BLT's.

#spring

Jim, care to elaborate on your meeting?

Sam, sure looks like some fine archery hunting country.

Super water fowl habitat right now.

All kinds of geese and ducks.

Couple weeks behind here.
Dust is just starting to fly on the Palouse.
Saw some pretty deep tractor tracks where it is still mud in the low spots.
Rain forecast again this weekend.

It is to dry here for plowing.

The fields were watered,plowed and listed about a month ago.

After running the irrigation systems to wet the ground.

Just about an hour ago we had a large wind storm hit here,about 50 or better out of the NE.
It sucks because the dirt is moving.

Yep, same thing just Western Colorado lingo.

Nobody moving yet in southeast ND.

I haven't even seen anyone try for spring wheat yet, which should be done by now.

Usually figure half the corn in the ground by April 25--none this year. And it won't be for a week or two yet.

Farmers are going to be up against the insurance cutoff deadlines for every crop this spring.

Do you folks use no-till planting?

For the most part this folk does.

Corn seed been going in the ground for a week in Norhtern Missouri. Dusty dry on top but good subsoil moisture.

We intend to plant every acre this spring.

No fallow.

What is not in wheat or flax will be in a pea and barley mix or a full season cover crop.

We hope to hay the pea and barley mix to help fill the haylot. Might take some pressure off our dryland hay. Some of which we may graze again.


Once the peas and barley is off...probably in the the binder stage, we will try to plant some sorghum sudan grass to stockpile for winter grazing.


Thats the plan anyway!

Yes, on some of the farm.

No till has been slow to get a foothold here.
But it is coming on strong now.

Always hard to get these German heritage farmers to buy a new machine when the paid for one works, or can be fixed.
The big crop farmers have cash, and can benefit from small efficiency improvements. The dairy man who works under
a thousand acres has a hard time penciling out fancy new equipment.

Just wondering as I've read and seen good things about it.

My buddy says, "if it ain't one thing...it's two"!

Baling wheat here this week.

Farming?


I know that guy, man.

It's been one of the wettest and coolest springs here in recent memory. Corn planting is usually about finished by now, but some farmers haven't even been able to start. A lot was planted at the end of last week on the drier fields. So far I've managed to fertilize hay and pasture ground, and drag the pasture. I'm afraid we've had so much water on one hay field that it's not going to be worth cutting. Have got a little garden planted. Green peas, potatoes, and a little sweet corn are up and growing. Planted more sweet corn, but it's not up yet. Have strawberries, green beans, and tomatoes growing in the high tunnel.

It's rained here every day since Sunday, over 2 inches so far, but the long range is for drier and warmer weather. If that happens, things will start popping around here big time.

We haven't turned a wheel yet here, and we normally like to start around April 15 with corn. We have had lots of shop time because of all the snow and cold, hoping things run smooth. Once we start going, the corn planter will run around the clock this year. Weather forecast looks good for the next week. We may try to put 130 acres of alfalfa in this weekend, next week will be go time on corn.

They're starting just a bit in the Mann Valley area of western WI.. I think we've got another week before ground can be worked for planting..

They are cutting hay here, corn is about a foot high in central Texas, winter wheat looks good too, soy beans and milo are up too. Green as can be in central Texas right now.

Excellent reports, thank you all!


Off to go move the tractor down the highway before the morning madness kicks in. People are extra stupid drivers in the morning....

Here in NW Indiana, the planters started rolling, yesterday. If we have as good a weather pattern, as they have forcasted, they will be going full tilt boogie, over the next 10 days.

If everything goes according to plan we will be done farming by Friday. Been a struggle up until this last week. The weather finally cooperated. Our 8" soil temp is now up to 53. Early spring crops are up and the fall wheat looks really good.

Just started to get things going last Friday. Spring rains have made a mess of things, but we needed the rain.

Nothing being turned up/drilled here yet, but it's been a little wet and the flooding ain't completely over.

They just started doing the no till around here about 2 years ago. First I had seen it too. I know it pisses off the rock hounds.

Can you only do no till a few times before you need to turn sheit over or can you go on doing no till forever?

Gonna problably start here in North Dakota in about a week. Been slow thaw. Now temps are in 50-60 range. Soil temp in the mid 30s . Ed k

took the first cutting of hay here this past week

In theory you can be no till forever.

In practice very few farmers are that good at it, but it is possible.

Seems like minimum till is popular here. Last 3 days the fields have come alive with guys pulling a ripper here and putting down anhydrous there. Wanna say things are a couple of weeks behind here, but soil temps have been low... There were guys putting down anhydrous 3-4 weeks ago but it was cold. Had some serious snow since then...

Green-up is coming, but slowly. Most years I've mowed a couple of times by now.



From 1:40 or so is typical of what it looks like here...

Mid-Missouri and West Central Missouri are starting to get hot and heavy. Mix of till, min. till and no till around here.

Yeah, I have been at it for a few weeks here in the Central Rockies. Had the local Co-op spread fertilizer and Sonolan on the safflower ground yesterday. I need to get it incorporated today, then plan to drill the seed on Friday.

After the planting is over, it will be time to get the irrigation system up and running.

Granular?

We tried liquid Sonolan once.

What kind of prices are you getting for your safflower?

They offered us 16 cents.

That. But when seeding alfalfa it really needs to be chisel-plowed, then run a finisher over it twoce to get it planted.. Then many around here go over that with a roller to get any small stones buried.. But they do run the risk of severe runoff via heavy rains before it germinates..

First crop hay here won't be done until nearly June 1st..

Yes. I have never seen any irrigated alfalfa planted no till. Probably do it somewhere though.


We plant dryland hay using no till. Usually try to plant it in the fall.

I usually have the liquid Sonolan applied by a spray rig, but this year we had a flush of spring weeds and volunteer wheat that we needed to take out with glyphosate. With the 48 hour incorporation window on the Sonolan, it became easier to spray the glyphosate, wait a couple of days then apply the Sololan with the fertilizer. They applied liquid Sonolan to the dry fertilizer in the mixer.

They are offering 16 cents for safflower here this year as well. We grow the white-hulled birdseed type here.

Depending on the prior crop, you can plant alfalfa using no-till without any problems. A lot of folks around here are in a long term rotation of five years of irrigated alfalfa followed by two years of winter wheat. They harvest the winter wheat in July, bale the straw off, and no-till alfalfa into the remaining stubble in September.

Here it's grain corn or soybeans and winter wheat.

A little millet here and there. The county to the west grows lots of cotton.

Been lots of Anne, the love-sticken, 9-headed snake heading out around here the last few days. Also lots of fire trucks heading out to help out those unfamiliar with the interaction between flames and wind.

I know some farms that have been no-tilled for 30-40 years. It mostly depends on soil type and the land itself. Here on my farm, this is how my neighbor that rents the cropland does it......he will put anhydrous down, run a harrow over the ground, and no-till the corn, then he will drill no-till wheat into the corn stubble in the fall, and after the wheat is cut in June, he will no-till soybeans. If he can combine the beans early enough in the fall, and the ground is not too wet, he will usually rip it every 3 or 4 years. On land that is too wet for wheat, and I have some, he does a corn-soybean rotation, both no-till. I guess you could call what he does as a combination of minimum till and no-till.

i turned over my 20x60 ranch the other day. took me almost an hour.

Didn't make into the field today.

Feed cows and fix fence, damn cows are a pain in the ass this time of year! Hate trying to farm and brand and haul out pairs all at once kind of deal......


But this afternoon I did change the oil in one of the ol' Versatiles.


Had the drill up and when I came back from getting oil it was on the ground. Nice big oily mess on the drill frame. Blown hose but I'd rather it happened now than later. Then I discovered a 1" hose coming from the hydraulic 'radiator' is leaking.

Running this old stuff is always 'fun' and sure beats payments on a new one!




My dad did drive up to Glasgow with the two canner bulls and got a change of pasture permit. He said there wasn't anything out moving the fields which I found a little surprising.

I almost made some progress today.

I was working at getting a track tension cylinder off the 85C Challenger.


You hook up the hydraulics to both tension cylinders and extend them.

Then you put the stops in and release the pressure.

I tried to cheat and just use one stop on the center pin on the axle. Crushed it like a pop can.

Now I need the cylinder stops from T and E in Great Falls. I will try and borrow them so I can get this job done and then I will make a set of stops.

Tomorrow I will get tires and wheels for the roller and go out south to see if I can resurrect the old tool bar thats been sitting out there for years.

It's been a wet/cold spring here. Was just starting to dry out and we spread a bunch of manure/fertilizer yesterday on some drier ground. Rained off and all day today. Not much going on around here

Jim, sorry to hear the short cut didn't pan out!

What make toolbar are you attempting to resuscitate?




Ben, wish we could get your extra rain(in a about a month).........grin

Putting duals on another tractor.

Its an old Morris Sam.

It was a CP 60 footer that we cut down to 40 feet.


I put all new Melroe shanks on it years ago, and a bunch of new trip pieces. The Melroe shanks are good because they are 1.25 instead of an inch. Bad thing is they take 47 degree shovels.

The nice thing about the old Morris tool bars was that they actually had a trip shank. It took a lot of pressure to trip them out of the ground, but once you did the pressure went down.

They are a lot of maintenance compared to our Flexicoil or the older Friggstad we have.

Nothing works every time.
Trade offs in every method.
Long term no-till has benafits (saves on erosion, moisture, less fuel, etc),
but then you get grass problems, may need more artificial fertilization, germination woes, ground won't "dry" in the spring.....

Enviros love no-till in theory, but despise Roundup......and it takes lots o' Roundup.....

Richard, that looks like a well kept operation!



Jim, interesting. Get a pic or two of the Morris, I'd like to see what the trip shank setup looks like.

A trip shank around here usually involves a knife....





Wages, the farmers around here have gone to a pea, bean or lentil crop(depending on the insurance.....) rotated with spring wheat every other year.

Yeah, for eons the Palouse had legumes cornered.......
til the Canookers, then Dakotas and Montana entered the fray.....
Sonobitches......:)

Soon we will be raising more pulse crops than Canada.


Canada went a little crazy and followed lentils with lentils and peas with peas.....for several years.


The disease got them.

JimBob,
They are doing that here with garbs, this year.
Only crop they make good money on, short term.
It will bite back sooner or later in oversupply and/or disease.
Short term play to try to keep the head above water.
Not good, long term.
Stay tuned.

Yeah, what the hell you going to do?

We diversified with some organic acres.

Might try some flax. Lentils just have not paid well. Neither did safflower.


No mustard contracts. Garbs are high, but no act of god contracts left.

Yellows and greens are pretty low right now.

Eat more hummus.....


Local pea seed company here did not plant 1 acre of peas in the Palouse last year....
I Shìt Thee not.
They processed other legumes and let contracts for them, but not peas.
For some of their growers it was their first year EVER of zero peas....
Interesting times.

We just finished planting over 2,000 acres of dry peas along with DNS.

No peas in the Palouse? Wow!

The guy who farms my Grandpa's old place at Surrey says he's dry for the winter but is going to try to get some wheat in this weekend. Hope it goes good for him not just in the short, but hopefully some wet is in the offing.

This might sound corny...But, I have a ton of respect and admiration for all of you who farm and ranch for yourselves and our country.

It’s without a doubt a very difficult occupation that most of us couldn’t be successful at...The talent, knowledge, and mechanical skills required just fixing things that break would overwhelm most people...Caring for the land and animals daily...Watching market prices. Costs for buying diesel, seed, chemicals, equipment and then more equipment, parts, tools, irrigation systems, bank loans and payments, etc, etc, etc, etc....Is mind boggling! You, all are amazing people!...Simply saying...if you do it for yourself and family, “Good On You”...If you do it for our country, then “Thank you”...Mark 😎

Great machines, those... The farm I work part-time for has five of 'em in various HP ranges; the biggest is a 7250.. And I'm sure they've already got the duals on 'em in preparation for serious field work.

Holy Cow, BlueMtnMan.
Gotta admire the optimism of the American Farmer.
Here's to hoping you have a great seed contract or something.
I have talked with a couple growers wondering if the price would rebound since there wasn't any.
Good luck.

Looking for another tractor here...

It never stops...

No flat tires Barry?

LOL!

Richard, I saw a more modern tractor in Mexico a few years back that had rear tires like that! They looked homemade, and the tractor was being used for shredding in some pretty bad brush down there.

No flats, for sure! I wouldn't wanna drive it much though. Might be a tad rough...

I remember signs along the blacktops that said "Vehicles with Lugs Prohibited".

Those are what they called, steel wheels. I used to see a few the years back. I never had the displeasure of driving one.

Grandpa was the first guy in Blaine County to try rubber tires.

I know that steel was an option for the H until after WWII.

My father trucked an F20 with steel wheels to a farm ten miles away.

Corn is knee high here!!

It's already the 4th of July?!

I see steel wheel tractors everyday around here. One branch of the local Mennonites requires their members to run steel. They even have it on combines, and on a lot of their other equipment.....including riding mowers. I'll take a pic sometimes and post it.

The usual position for a track tension cylinder.

Beats what I had to do to the other Challenger last year.....

Drilling oats yesterday.
Gilbert watching to make sure Dad fills the drill with seed properly/

Rolling the oats today.

Jim, I suddenly feel much better about our current tractor 'issue'......grin


Your projects are way beyond my level, there is no way in hell I'd be able to remember how to put it all back together!



Went to replace a 1" hydraulic hose coming directly from the the oil cooler(radiator). Large fittings and it's right off the the delicate copper tubing of the radiator....

One fitting takes a 1 1/2" wrench, the other 1 3/8".


What should have been a 1 hr job turned out to be all afternoon and the tractor is out of commish until hopefully next Thursday at the the latest....


Threads had gone to hell and we could not get it busted loose. Heat and get a 1/16" turn, repeat. Get an easy half turn and jam up bad.




Judging by the old fittings it had been 'worked' on before.


Obsolete part, $1130. Only 12 left in the country....

Jim, if weren't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all.

Richard, that roller is awesome!


Appears to be a beautiful seed bed.

People pay me good money to put rocks like those in their yards 😁

Sam, knowing where to drive can be "fun". The angle of sunlight makes a big difference. I've been pulling that old Western Land Roller since 63.

Jake has been looking for another roller, we have a hitch we pulled two four row planters with. The rollers sell for over $500.

Could you just solder or braze a new end on the cooler Sam?

My friend has an 875 Versatile.

Last spring I was helping him finish up farming and he blew up the u joint and yolk on the drop box that goes to the front end.

Needed the yolk on the drop box and the back half of the front drive shaft.

Both obsolete and outrageously priced.

He found both parts at a wrecking yard in Canada for like a third of the price.

Richard, sounds like the roller is just getting broke in!




Jim, as we were battling the fittings I asked my dad if he knew and good silver solder guys.

Again, this is out of my pay grade......grin

Looks like half a cultimulcher.

Mulchivator earlier today.

thing thats what we saw when hog hunting, that you were wondering what it was used for.

Whatever that thing was, it was Texas sized. The wheels were a much larger diameter than on a standard cultipacker/mulcher.

I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of it.

Just getting started planting north central ND

Drove from my place in bottineau 3 hrs to Jamestown (south) and saw two tractors pulling disc to dry the top out some. No seeding or anything else. Ed k

A little tale about the steel wheeled tractor. When my dad was a teenager he and a brother rode the train to Iowa. They then drove a tractor with steel wheels back to North Dakota on the Canadian border. He said the lucky one got to walk while the other drove. A little rough. The good ole days. Ed k

Nope....but by 4th July we'll be damned nigh close to harvest! "Knee high by 4th July" is the saying over in Wisconsin also!!

Sam-I live just south of the Twin Cities here in Mn. Not seeing any tractors working in the fields yet, but we've been dry for close to two weeks now. I gotta think they'll be at if this week if this weather holds. Still a few patches of snow in the shady spots, but that ought to all be gone this week. Still ice on some of the area lakes.

3 air seeders planting wheat in surrey township today. Ward county

Start planting corn tomorrow morning in southeast ND.

Supposed to be dry here this week. The planters will be rolling. We are almost 10 inches of rain above normal for the year, and it's really delayed the corn planting here. Most of the corn is planted by now.

I would like to thank all of you that farm and ranch. I’m sure it’s hard and financially uncertain. You are dependent on things like rain that you have no control over. You all are the backbone of our country!

God bless you and you families

Jim;
Top of the morning to you sir, it's a semi-sunny day here on this side of the medicine line - looks promising at this juncture anyway Jim, and I trust you all can say the same.

When I read some of you and Sam's posts and see both of your videos sometimes its like I've stepped into a time warp - in a good way I must add.

I know my late father met/knew George Morris and if you've ever had any Leon machinery - that was started by Leon Malinowski in Yorkton, SK - I knew him well enough to say hello, but he knew the two guys I farmed with - brother and cousin - much better. We used to do some testing on prototypes for Leons back in the '70's.

Holy smoke Jim - the '70's..... I am old and no, I don't expect you or Sam recall even the '80's that much!

Anyway I do appreciate the pair of you taking my mind off of the present vagaries of life from time to time.

I hope the spring goes well for you both. We're having a late one here, but despite a much colder than normal calving season up here, my rancher buddy had a good crop of fresh calves - so much so that they beat us old guys up pretty good when we branded two weeks ago.

All the best to you all.

Dwayne

Disking yesterday.

Seeding going on in SW ND on Sunday. Spring wheat, I assume.

Way south-west of you, but my son is helping his part time boss chop and disc his 640 to prepare it for corn.

Our 20 acres has been land planed, waiting for the layout guys to set the straws indicating where the Vines will be planted. We'll go out and remove the ones near the power poles, ends where we need 30' for the Harvester to pick the grapes for clearance, and in 3-4 weeks we'll have the stakes driven, crossarms bolted on and then wires for the drip and for the Quad support for the vines.

This is a "once every 40 years" deal, so it's my last turn replanting the vineyard, unless they have a way to keep me alive until age 100, lol.

Great to see all the big equipment, ton's of hours and crossed fingers/ praying you-all do to feed the nation. My hat is off to the farmers of America.

Allen

Thanks Dewayne.

I use a Morris air seeder and like it.

Morris and Leon were both popular down here.

Had to take a little nap today while rolling hay fields.

I finished up pre-working the feed grounds/hay barley fields on Sunday. And then we got the first 'big' rain of the year, an entire .25" of welcome moisture.


Guys are going around here planting wheat and garbanzo beans. We're going to have our dry land wheat ground pre-sprayed later this week.


It was cows all day here. Got the first 50 calves out of the 2 year olds branded this afternoon. Hopefully get them hauled out soon and then start in on the bigger bunches. And try to squeeze in some more field work as well....

No rest for you Sam!


I saw that Roosevelt and Valley were in a red flag warning earlier. Crazy!

Then we eats our peaches!

Jim, first of all great pics!

It was a perfect day here, 60's and a light breeze.




Hey, you are a mechanical.


We have a '75 IH grain truck that is running like chit. It will only run at an idle if you hold the choke plate down. Rev it a little and it will run at 1500 rpm without the choke, let off on the gas and it dies.

I'm assuming something is plugged up in the carb?

Yeah, sounds like something in the idle circuit.

Could be a vacuum leak too.

Is there an easy way to tell if it's a vacuum leak?

Used to take a can of ether and spray it at the base of the carb. RPM would increase if there were a leak.


It would have to be a very big leak to cause it to run lean enough to die at an idle though.

Probably something in the idle circuit. Sometimes you can get lucky and take the mixture screws out and shoot some carb cleaner in there.

A friend of mine carries a length of guitar wire to unplug jets and such.

What in the name of all that is Redneck are you doing teaching that kid to eat with a fork?

Okay thanks man.


I'll mess around with it again tomorrow.


One nice thing about those old Loadstar's is that there's a ton of room under the hood.

If it’s has old gas in it, you can also try some fresh fuel and seafoam. Sometimes it’s easier to just get a gasket kit and break it down and clean it.

Norman, I had it running directly from a gallon jug of fresh fuel and Seafoam. I figured maybe bad gas but no luck.


These 40 year trucks that get used 2 weeks out of the year are somewhat temperamental.....

I'd never heard of Leon Mfg until I found a Leon loader for my Kubota.

Was there ethanol in the gas? (Last year's). I bet it could have sat in the carburetor, and messed it up.


It's too wet around here to do anything. Might try and spread a little manure this afternoon.

STA-BIL is your friend

Amen!!!! I use it religiously. Got tired of repairing or replacing carbs.

We have had a grand total of 0.25" of rain in late march and nothing since. The oats are a lost cause. Turned the cows out on them 2 weeks ago. No need in wasting more money on a lost cause. I planted a couple of fields with sudan after the fields dried in March. It is doing pretty good but it sure needs a drink of water. I had to buy hay last year for the first time in 10 years. Selling off some of the older and bigger cows to try to keep from buying hay again this year if we don't get rain. Good thing I have another job that supplements my farming and ranching losses.

Jim

Some fun last couple of days up by the Sweet Grass Hills

url=https://postimg.cc/image/4dp4xexj1/][/url]images upload[/img]

Good work Steiger!


We ran Steigers for years. They were the finest farming tractors you could buy at the time.


Unless it was wet. Then Versatile was better.


They were much lighter.

We put some barley in this afternoon. She’s still sticky out there that’s for sure. A few guys got started last week before the rain but not many. It’s going be a long month ahead to get stuff in.

What part of the country are you near C Hell?

I am as far NE MT as you can get. Westby. All of our land is right on the Canadian line and about 4 miles from the ND border

Chickin farmin......

Ok. Thanks.


Are you guys coming out of the drought okay?

More Chickin farmin....

We caught a little snow in March. Some of it was pretty wet which helped fill some of the potholes. And we got a half inch of rain here on Monday. The grass really is starting to perk up from that. I put the probe in looks like we got about 14 inches or so of top moisture. Which for spring in this country is pretty weak. I would say we are 3 weeks from a drought at any time without a real substantial type rain. Our grass situation is pretty poor as we overgrazed last year hoping on a rain. So probably be feeding until the 20th of May or so. Got about 5000 acres to seed. Never like seeding in June.

Why you rolling that hay ground Jim? So you dont pick up rocks with the windrower?

I was really surprised to learn that you guys east of us got so much less snow this winter.

We were short on grass too, but did manage to save some safflower and some straw bunches that we just turned on to. We are going to pasture calve now. The old girls were dropping calves on the way out of drylot.

Got them to grass just in time.


We dont like seeding in June either, but it seems to happen pretty often. Sometimes my late seeding even does better than the early stuff.

Seems like that country is Pulse Crop heaven?


Good luck this year.

Yep. The first year we started haying all this dry land we spent about 6000 bucks in parts.

That was for the 956 MoCo and the 569 baler.


Second year we rolled everything and it shaved 10 days off haying and we spent maybe 500 bucks on parts!

The guy pulling the MoCo would be broke down 2 hours a day, easy. Now he has to stop for a cigarette because he never has to get out to fix any thing.

Yes we basically didn’t have any snow all winter. Got a little in March is all. Yes we grow as much pulses as we dare every year. Only way to make any money it seems. We grow Richlea lentils is our main one. Do some green peas but not a lot. Now with the new crop insurance rotation rules might end up pretty much cutting peas out.

I wish our cows were out to pasture. We have them in a small pasture by the house. But still feeding hay. Got around 20 left to calf of the 250.

Where are you from Jim?

I would have thought the whole world was under 4 feet of snow this winter. I had no idea you guys were open all winter. Damn.


We tried lentils twice. 2016 it rained all year so we planted them late. Just as we were getting ready to cut them we got 2 feet of heavy wet snow. Plastered everything into the mud.

2017 we averaged 6 bushels across all the acres of Richleas. Lots of 0 and some 12. Lost our ass both years.

We chickend out this year. Probably should grow some, someplace.

We are pretty lucky since most of our grass is pretty much "out the gate". The green up is just getting started, but we had saved forage.

Switched to May 1st calving, so out the gate they went! Wife and I are schitting ourselves, but I think pasture calving on green grass is going to work.


Our place is 10 miles south east of Chinook in Blaine County.

Lentils can be touchy that is for sure. They seem to like some stress. Do not like being overly wet 2016
We had the wettest year ever recorded up here and had a lot of white mold. Yields still were real good tho believe ours went 27 in 2016 and prices were awesome as for last year in the drought we got them in pretty early and I believe cut a 14-15 bushel lentil crop. But.... kind of failed on the marketing and are sitting with thousands of bushels of them. And the price is now 6 bucks a bushel lower then when we cut them. Ouchh.

I always say farming would be a lot funner if you didn’t have to do the marketing thing. Seems like always kicking yourself for something. Either shoulda sold and didn’t or else did sell and wish you hadn’t. We still got all of our bins full of that vomatoxin durum
From 2016. Bought an air cleaner to clean that stuff but haven’t got around to it.

I was down in South Texas last week and saw some crops to talk about. Cotton knee high, and probably close to blooming. Here, back when we raised cotton, a bloom by the 4th of July was an early crop. I also saw two wheat fields that had been harvested. Several fields of corn that had tassels, and some about 3 inches high. Normal planting here in Arkansas is last of March. Sweet corn usually ready by the 4th of July. miles

Miles you need to let me know when you're down here I owe a fishing trip.

Barring bad health problems, I will be back. miles

cool deal

Watched one of the farming tractors leave the yard today.

Put in a big session on that tractor and got it ready. Wife helped me put the track tension cylinder on.

Cat mechanic brought the cylinder up from Great Falls and saved me a trip. Also came precharged with dry nitrogen.


Got started working some ground in front of the drills today. Ground conditions are very hard. Tool bar would not go into the ground.


Going to try a set of 47 degree shovels. If that does not work we will be renting a Wishek disc.


Not all of our ground is hard like this, but it is a worry when the first field you try is too hard to farm.



Our pasture calving is going nicely. We are out to grass and calving at the same time.


Bloody brilliant!

At the water plant.

We seem to have went from winter to summer here . spring grass going for pasture and hay ain't been very good.

Sounds like a lot of tough conditions in the country.

Is there an accumulator in the circuit?

Would it kill the driver to let the poor kid ride in the cab?

Great PIC!!!

Loading some durum in the truck to start the wheat seeding.

WTF? Wet spot? Spring? Quick Sand?

Planting some lentils right back into last year’s lentils.

Big sky country!

How wide are you planting?

We are pulling a 60 foot plow. The rows are 10 inch spacing.

WOW!

How many acres?

Suppose to seed this field in a couple days. Still got the combined parked out there

Jim, that is the way to haul water!


What type of sprayer do you use?


We've got a couple old Spra Coupes that we use in the river bottom but everything up in the hills is hired out to a guy with a big JD, he sometimes has a buddy help him with a similar machine and they can cover some serious acreage.


Got done with cow chores and finally got some seed in the ground this afternoon.

The Ol' Versatile was purrin' like a kitten....

Everything looks brand new!

It takes some big country to make those combines look small.

Nice looking operation C Hell.


Hopefully we get some seed in the ground tomorrow.

Bad field conditions here......harder than hell.


Dealing on an old Wishek disc right now.

Sam, how wide are you?

Yeah, what hell C, you hit an oil well or two?!

grin



Guys are going non-stop here now, the big push is on.

We just got another .35 tonight we needed it badly. Ran drill 16 hours a day and got done with the lentils this morning. Got the first 1700 in. Did it in 5 days. 1/3 done.



Here was cleaning grain a couple weeks ago

I have a 110 foot Summers suspended boom.

Bought it used a couple years ago. Been a good sprayer.

Pull it with an 8650 John Deere.

I have 30,000 into that combo. Sprayer was 18 and the tractor was 12.

My neighbor has 180,000 into big self propelled John Deere.

We run a JD 2013 4940 with 120 foot booms 1200 gallon tank. Had a older case self propelled traded it off in Dickinson came out about 100 to boot which we thought we did real good at the time.

That’s how it works in PA too, except it’s gas.

We farm around a lot of oil wells. Like a lot. I wish we got some money off them. I rent 1000 acres of ground from two old brother bachelors the Bakken did them well pretty sure of that.

I am not exactly sure how it works.

The cylinder itself is self contained. A very large spring forces the rod into the bore of the cylinder. The two cylinders pull the axle ahead to keep the tracks tight.

I am not sure what the dry nitrogen is for. When the nitrogen leaks out the track sags.

I guess it would have to be on the spring side.

So approx. 5k acres of lentils?

5k total the rest will be durum. Put in a little barley and a little peas to start

Boy, you guys dont screw around up in the north east!

Nice looking operation.

40' with 12" spacing, old Concord drill. But it's as big as I'd want for the little bordered strips(fields) I was on today.


No auto steer.


C would love our little loading auger. And there's only one hopper bottomed bin on the place and it's full cow cake....



Luckily we don't seed that many acres. Maybe 1100 total this year? Chem fallow another couple hundred, some summer fallow.

Couple hundred acres of alfalfa but of course it comes up all by itself.


The big guys up in the hills go anywhere from 5-15k acres. Massive farms.

Great pictures everyone.


I will try to get some tomorrow.


Got some 47 degree shovels to try. Maybe we will get in the ground then.

The place next door to us was owned by two bachelor brothers. We always called them the Smother’s Brothers. Apparently when their mother died this big fat woman moved in. My Dad said they shared a girlfriend. The whole place was falling down around them. The brothers died within a few weeks of one another when I was 12 or so. They were in their nineties.

I would say around here the average farmer probably in that 3500 area lots of guys smaller and lots of guys bigger. We just a two man operation me and my dad still.

Sam what model and year is that versatile.

We still run a 975 to harrow. And we got an 835 with a dozer still use too.

We have planted a bunch of ground back to hay and grass over the last several years. We needed a hay base worse than 20 bushel spring wheat ground!


We will plant 1800 acres of cash crops this spring. Conventional wheat and organic wheat. Maybe some flax. Sorta ran out of pulse crop ground!

600 acres of peas, oats and barley for hay....hopefully. More hopefully followed by sorghum sudan grass.

600 acres of a full season cover crop.

No summer fallow or chem fallow.

Will hay 1000 acres of dryland grass and alfalfa.

I think I can make all that work....if we get a rain!

I wont bitch though. I know you guys over east of me are a lot drier.

That 600 acres will make for some awesome hay. We are always short trying to scrounge up bales. Usually end up feeding a lot of poor CRP type crap. What are you running for a baler? I just traded to a 569 Premium last winter and we have been running Vermeer for the last few years. Just wondering if anybody has heard anything.

Jim, there's a lot of Summers around here as well.


Good sprayers.

It's crazy how much equipment costs.



Now everyone has new conveyors setup out in the field for loading the drill with bean seed.





C, that is a 1981 875 that has been turned up a skosh. It'll blow a little smoke out of the turbo when you hit a soft spot.....grin

I love those old tractors, my dad still has an 835 he bought brand new back in '83(?).

Great machines but they getting old and the hoses and hydraulics are getting a little leaky. We spent a couple afternoons replacing lines/hoses on the 875.

That is exactly what we need to be doing.


But we are also way behind the curve(equipment wise) when it comes to the pulse crops(rotation).

I wouldn't mind seeding all the dry land back to grass.


Of course that would guarantee the cattle market would crash and wheat would hit $9 again......

I like old stuff too Sam.

I about cried when the Steigers went down the road.

These Challengers are good though.


C Hell, we are running a 569 standard baler.

I was a Hesston guy for years and years.

Would never go back.

C, I know guys would love both Vermeer and JD balers.


We use a pair of NH 7090's and they are good balers. Little trouble once in awhile with getting a clean cut on the net wrap.

I threaten to seed grass every year Sam!

In fact we have 1000 acres planned here shortly.

Would tear out some old tame grass though for organic farming.


We bought a land roller several years ago and a flex head last year Sam.

Seems you can get by with even less for pulse crops.

That 975 of ours really is a nice tractor still don’t mind running her. Our 835 on the other hand. No AC. Shift sticks. Leaks oil everywhere from every hole engine gallops when it runs. But she always cranks right up. Those old versatiles were some tough old buggers.

We ran a 605M before and it made awesome bales had a lot of bearing issues in the last few years and I think ended up
Changing like 9 bearings and 3 rollers both axel stubs broke. Belts were getting worn. It was just time. We had a 535 JD before that and our main problem with that was the damn kicker. So I’m scared going back to the kicker on the JD versus the ramp on the Vermeers

I have had to do a little work to the kicker but not much.

One weld was bad from the factory. It never broke as I found the crack in time.

I also had to replace a little spring.

Not a huge amount of use, but I think we are at 12,000 bales in 4 years.

I sure liked the ramp on the Vermeer never really had any issues with that at all.

That is more bales then we make. We usually do 1500-2000 a year.

Good Lord... Got enough remotes there, Butch?

pic from yesterday, pumpkin from seeds cleaned out of the kids Halloween pumpkin, that were thrown in the front flower bed.

Ya, we got out the same day after getting into it. The neighbor buried his sprayer, almost buried a trackhoe digging it out, and finally dug it out a week later.

Got a couple hundred acres seeded today.

New shovels on the tool bar too.

Spent the last couple of days pressure washing, checking nuts, bolts and fluid levels, sharpening blades, as well as hand waxing the big tractor, ( I know... not many of you wax your tractors, but it helps keep the brush scratches down to a minimum.)

I also touch up the paint on the shredders. Rust is a killer, and I fight the hell out of it down here.

Thats a mean looking chomper in the front!





We got rained out. Hope it heads east too.


Might have gotten 3 or 4 tenths.

I know absolutely nothing about row crop farming or farming on a large scale, like you fellow do for a living. But I always enjoy the pics, discussions about the conditions, and talk about the equipment.

Ditto..

I work part-time for a somewhat large dairy farm. They work about 2,000 acres and milk 1500 cows.. But it's nothing like my wife's relatives north of Malta, MT.. The two brothers, each, own about 45 sq. MILES of wheat land. The size of the strips boggles my mind. They drop a digger in the ground and one hour later, turn around for another swipe!!! And one of 'em also grows a couple thousand head of absolutely beautiful Angus cattle - although I think they're cutting down that part of the operation a little.. I haven't talked to Howie in a year or so..

Its amazing what you guys do, and without even a single tree, hell a 60 acre field around here is rear and about as a guy wants to plant in a day, heck 25-30 round bales gets us threw the winter till grass greens up.

Barry, that red tractor is all ready for the parade!



Jim, we didn't get much rain. Just enough to make the top a little sticky. Oh well, at least you guys got something.




Oldman, I'm curious to hear about other areas as well. And of course it's always interesting to here about local stuff.




Jimy, we have tree's here on the river!

I always figure 20 acres an hour with the drill at 5mph. Stop to fill up roughly every 2.5 hours and it takes an hour to reload(by myself).

200 acres a day would be good for us.

200 acres is a good day for us too. Never get 300, but sometimes get 240-250.


If I have help I can load the drills in about an hour. If I dont have any help I can do it in 45 minuets.

The JD 569 that I run in the summer has about 20k bales on the kicker without many problems. It breaks the big springs sometimes, and the small chains, but no big deal to replace.

The main problem is if you kick a bale and then decide to back up for some reason, you will bend the kicker.

Jim, I know exactly what you mean........



Love that pic!


We get around 50 acres of wheat per fill, 40 acres of barley.


It would be nice to have a bigger cart....

Tuesday?

A little Cummins music Sam.


Dad farmed for years with Steiger tractors.

Steiger had the quietest cab in the industry....hands down. So quiet that most Steigers came with straight pipes. Some guys put mufflers on them but it was not needed.



One day dad kicked the door open for some reason and it was so loud outside he closed the door and shut the tractor off. He thought something was wrong!


That was with the 310 Cummins turned up to about 350. I still miss that sound.

I thought I was going to get finished up here at home tomorrow.........



Not so much I guess.

Looks like you guys are getting a lot done. I’ve never seen a tractor as clean as the one with the chompers. We caught .40 on Tuesday night Wednesday we hauled the yearling heifers out to pasture and I fenced the first cow pasture. Today I started seeding the durum had a good day on our crazy hilliest piece did 335 acres. We get 73 acres per fill. Run out of nitrogen first we are putting 125 pounds of urea on. 50 pounds of phosphorous and 85 pounds of durum seed. Got a new variety this year called Joppa. Been out a few years.

Found this shed on the edge of the field. He is broke. But real nice mass and length. Could be a real smoker. Damn white tails.

Nice to find those sheds when they are not in a tire!

That's where I usually find them!

I'm cutting wheat for hay. Pretty old school here compared to you big farmers out west but it gets the job done.

James, what Is the yellow ?

I call it wild mustard. It gives the hay a better flavor.....lol. Only kidding. This was a field that we no tilled wheat and fescue in after corn. We're taking it out of crops and are going to pasture it. The wheat was sowed late, had too much water on it, and there was a mix up on the fertilizer order, which resulted in not enough being put on this particular field. It's a wonder I even had a good enough stand to cut.

Wheat cut at this stage makes good hay, just takes a while to dry down. I plan on tedding it tomorrow and we'll round bale it Monday.

Well James, it's good to know you're not too old to cut the mustard.

We are rained out here, again.

Looks like you have a bit of infestation with mustard.. A pita, that... We get it here too. For those that wish to get a bale or two of straw for garden mulch, they pay attention to just WHO they get it from.. Nothing worse than a bale contaminated with mustard..

Curious as to whether any of you out there have any issues with Yellow Nutsedge? On the wetter grounds here it can be a miserable sob to get rid of..

It's an issue down here. I spray for it.

The bigger problem is Rice Sedge... That stuff is highly invasive.

I remember Mickey Coleman struggling with nut sedge in his garden. He was going to try spraying with a mixture of molasses, or using dried molasses that He had heard was a fix. Don't know if He ever did, or how it turned out. miles

Damn, I wish I'd written that!

Cheers from Sweden,
John

That looks like the dog leg on the 9th.

Where's the trees?

Sam, we had 1/2” Wednesday night and a little last night NE of Shelby. Ran the seeder up until midnight to finish a section ahead of it.

Ya this field you double seed more then you don’t the crazy hills. My grandpa must have been smoking some real good [bleep] when he decided to break this

HAH.. Those ain't hills, those are gentle slopes compared to the fields I saw last year near Independence, WI.. I literally have NO idea how they plant/harvest anything on those fields w/o rolling the tractors about 6 times before they hit bottom.. I swear they're 45 degrees or more.. Just nuts.


But your pic above of those wide-open spaces looks like pure heaven to me..

This was no till wheat, and the usual practice is to spray and burn down the existing vegetation before planting. That I did not do, as it was late, and I wasn't sure the Roundup would work that well, and besides we originally weren't planning on cutting the wheat for hay. I had drilled fescue with the wheat, and was planning on grazing the wheat, then pasturing it this spring. But, we had an early cold spell which meant that the wheat didn't get big enough, and we didn't get the field fenced, so I decided to cut it for hay after all. There was a lot of cheatgrass in spots too, so this field won't make what it should. I cut another field of wheat on ground that was in tobacco last year, and the two combined should give us enough hay to see us through the winter.

I hate having weeds of any kind in my hay, because it's usually going to mean seeds that get spread. One of our worst weeds around here is wild buttercups in the spring pasture. They're hard to get rid of, because when you spray for them, you'll kill your clover. I sprayed a low rate of 2-4-D last year, which burnt them down, but did not hurt the pasture. They came right back this spring. That's something I've got to figure out how to deal with.

Man these jumps in oil prices have really got stuff crazy around here now. I think we got a mini boom
Coming back. Heard Williston has up to 2000 available jobs. On the farming part closing in on 60 percent done. 10 days or so we’ll have her stuff is drying out incredibly fast going need another shot of rain soon

Good info - thank you.

Yeah, first crop hay will be cut starting this Thursday, I think - and that crop is usually chock full of dandelion growth.. But once that's done and ready for 2nd crop, the alfalfa's quite clean. We also need rain here - haven't had more than .3-.4 since the last 15" of snow melted.. Gettin' very dry.

Have you tried wiping the buttercup?

Filming the neighbor girl.

you boys get a little nervous on a grade? Me too as I rolled a tractor in 1974. Carry on

You'd hate farming around these parts .....some of the terrain is so steep they use hydraulic levelers on the tractors. The soil's so rich they farm it anyway.

I am gonna stop posting pics of my stuff.


Its like Sanford and Son bought a farm compared to youse guys!

I powered out a 1977 Chevy C 65 on a steep ass hill one night.

20 foot box heaped up with wheat.


Breaks would not hold.


I was probably 12 or so.

Friday we had three flat tires(2 on the cultivator, one on the spreader) and the motor rattled off the fertilizer spreader......the second motor, that is; we had pulled the first POS off it in the morning.

We were doing battle with a field coming out of CRP.

Jim;
Good evening to you sir, I trust the weekend treated you and your fine family well.

Truly I hope you keep posting photos with the rest here, as mentioned it brings back a bunch of good memories for this former flat lander.

You and kroo are just south of where my mother was born and raised - Etzikom, AB - well south of there a bit actually. Grandfather ranged his cattle on Forty Mile Coulee back in the day.

I've still got family in Assiniboia, SK too which isn't all that far from you all - not in prairie travel terms anyway.

Anyway here's some encouragement to keep all of you posting photos from north of the medicine line - same line that C Hell farms so near to I see.

Thanks again all, I hope you get just enough rain and not a half inch more.

Dwayne

PS;
My late father was born in a sod house north of Maple Creek - Fox Valley area, but like Etzikom, there's not much left last time I went through.

Anyway, though I do love my adopted mountain home and have lived here 2/3 of my life, the flat lander blood still runs deep.

Thanks again all.

I was today as well.

Got my new to me old Wishek disc hooked up.

Had to unhook from the drill because it is getting so hard we are gonna get way behind.

Headed out south to my organic ground....which is a wreck.

It is former CRP.

My new to me old disc was cobbled together it seems. The lift cylinders won't phase.

Got to looking at it and the center section has one 4.5 inch bore and one 4 inch!

The lift on the wings are both 4 inchers.

Damn and blast.

Thanks Dwayne!

I will keep posting some.

Wife just peeked over my shoulder wondered what I was laughing about.

Birds and farm inspectors.

Yeah I got the look.

Best thread on the fire. Thank you all for what you do. I have family that farms and ranches in Idaho and some in Nevada. Tough way to make a living but I would do it a heartbeat if I could.

Great admiration for you all.

Daniel boy fell asleep when we were moving the rock picking tractor.

No heavy coat for a pillow, just an arm!

Been tending the olive orchard the past week.

Dry conditions make for good shredding, but lucky we got some rain last night.

I'll lay off for the day, but back in tomorrow again.

Morning Jim;
I've got to get ready to head over to our eldest daughter's place to help her and our son in law with some reno work.

Anyway I just wanted to send you a sincere thanks for taking your son along with you as you work - taking time for him and any/all of your kids actually.

As a father a little further down the road Jim, I can assure you that the moments you've shared in photos WILL pay dividends for years to come, both for you as a father and for us as a society. The evidence for that is overwhelming, so a tip of the battered Bailey for making the effort and sacrifice to do so Jim.

Thanks again and all the best to you and your fine family in the upcoming week.

Dwayne

Hey Jim! If it makes ya feel better at least you didn't pay 210,000 for a new sprayer that took 4 years to get working correctly. That will piss a guy off. Ed k

Hey Jimmy,
check out my fancy drill......
I can get some pics of my CC cultivator and old horse disc, if you like.
Don't forget the rigid harrow section with a flex behind on that atv there.
I'm stylin'.

I like that drill!

Could put one like it to good use, planting deer plots down here!

I had one like it once, but mine had rubber tires. They were very good drills.

I have a rubber tired version also.
It has grass boxes too.
Having two keeps my moves between patches down on crappy old logging roads.

Good stuff gentlemen, thank you all for the vids and reports!



We didn't think it was going to rain very much and I left the trucks and drill on the edge of a half section that I finished up last Friday. Went out yesterday to move the two trucks and one got stuck.

Like I told my dad, good problem to have and you know if we'd moved them onto the sod it wouldn't have rained a drop.......


Gonna try to hit the field again tomorrow but I'm thinking it still might be too sticky. And now they're calling for showers and T-storms tomorrow through Friday.

Wish we had decent tarps on the old trucks...lol



And speaking of birds...


Beings we are late this year the little brown 'field' bird chicks can fly outta the way. Most of them anyway. I did stop for one and also had to get out and chase a pair of young(retarded?) cottontails off to the side.

I do not like to run stuff over and yes, it is a pain in the ass to stop and whip around to restart. Time is money this time of year!

Am finally coming to the end of this season. Had some break downs this weekend and spent a lot of time fixing. Got about 400 acres left 3 moves tho. Hope to get it by wendseday. Moisture situation is horrible dust so thick when the wind blowing can’t see the plow behind you. Need to catch one of these thunder storms This week

I hope you guys catch a good one!

Just broke 230 hours on tractor for the season. Have only seeded 16 days. There is a reason I’m tired... we gotta get cows out to grass. Like ASAP young ones starting to look kind of tough from the poor hay. We have been putting liquid mineral on all the hay this year to try to increase feed value. Fee an awful lot of pea straw all year.

Well, if it's just you and your dad I know it can turn into a handful.

I would love to find a guy we could trust to run tractor/drill but it's hard.



We still have about 80 head of late calvers camped out in the pens and they NEED to go ASAP as well! Flies are showing up, and it's just too many head for the area.

But we can't haul out week old calves either.


Need to bit the bullet and sell all the late cows in Feb/March. Late calving does not work well when most of your grass is 70 miles away.

How do you haul them that far? Are you putting them in pots?

Yep, everything goes out by semi.

We keep around 50 pair here close to home but that's it.




Every load has 42 pair, the tricky part is making sure each load is paired up right.



Grass right out the gate would be a dream.....

And if it weren't for a couple highways and railroad tracks we'd have a much easier setup but the home place on the river bottom is split up away from decent sized pasture.

Southern Kansas Report: According to the latest drought index we have improved from drier than Hell to drier than schitt. I really can't say it's much of a difference, but they think so. Started getting a little moisture, but, this time of year it comes with a price; wind and hail. Wheat here is short. As my Grandfather would say "you couldn't hide a jackrabbit. Haven't heard how it's filling out. Some guys really got hosed by the late freeze, some of the wheat was in the joint at that time.

Do you guys have pots? I always wanted one but not really sure what for. We haul 120 pairs about 7 Miles. The rest is all chased right out the gate. Our setup for calving is not ideal either and we are way short on windbreak. Need to do a lot of updating. But it takes time and money. Both of which we are short on.

Bkraft, it must have rained just enough for the grain traders to drop the winter wheat market......

When you're that dry it takes inches not a tenth or two to get back on track.





C, no we don't truck our own cattle and I straight up told my dad that I am not going to. Not unless we find some more help!


We are always busy sorting up the next load while the trucker is making the 4-5 hour round trip.


It would be really nice to have your own personal truck/trailer ready to go whenever though. Our old trucker had a NICE tractor and newer quad axle but he retired. Luckily we have a new guy and he is great.

There are some sketchy outfits hauling cattle.

These guys are pro's and have insurance, good equipment, etc..



Wilson pots appear to be the best.

I wish I had a good back. So many opportunities and I'm a gimp.

kwg

There is just certain stuff it so much easier to hire done. We been hiring trucking of lentils and peas. To Williston and a lot goes to Canada actually. We end up trucking quite a bit hauling hay and grain even tho neither of us have our CDLs. Should probably go take it just to have it. I’ve finally started to actually enjoy tucking takes a long time to learn and not be worried about if you are going to be able to find a gear or not. Ha

Good luck!

Yes....that would make me grouchy.

Especially since that was about the price I paid for my first farm!

Slave, thats a nice looking setup.

We have a couple box drills like that too. Use them for seeding a bit of grass here and there.


What the hell were you listening for in that picture?

Jim,
I'm just singing to myself in that photo.
I believe I was cranking out "Welfare Mothers Make Better Lovers"......Neil Young.

I actually had the muffs on my ears while discin' that day.
That old Sumbitch hasn't seen grease in 30 years (it screams like Axel Rose) why start now?

I grease the drills though.

Looks like the ones made by Van Brunt way back when.

I have one that is labeled IH.

Had a John Deere for a while.

Highway 2 or bust!

Goin' over Wolf Creek!

Got another 8 10ths of rain today! Came just right after the 1.7" a couple days ago.

Truly a life saver rain.

Last cow had her calf today as well! Damn glad to have that done.

And it was actually runnin' water!


You DO NOT want to be moving equipment at 8-9AM or 4-6PM. It's a 70 mph chitshow.....


These guys farming out in the country don't know what they're missing.....grin



Good deal on calving and the rain.


We still have 20-30 head to go and plan on hauling them out to pasture and just run 'em as slicks.

Yeah. Down here too...

I road my big tractor enough to make me nervous...

Idiots texting on cell phones.

What passes for excitement at the wabigoon "ranch"

That low pressure over the ID Panhandle hit us about sundown. Spotty, but got a good half on top of "me." Made mud!

Hopefully this one will swirl straight east and not hang up over any snow.

This Wishek disc I bought it beginning to become a bit of a pain in the ass.


The new center section cylinder showed up yesterday. This one is 4.5 inch so at least the machine will go into the ground straight.

The old cylinder was drilled for 1 inch holes.

The new ones are drilled for 1.5 inch!

Apparently there is a retrofit pin that you can buy. It is 1.5 on one end, is turned to 1 in the middle and then is supplied with a 1.5 ODx1 ID bushing.


I can only assume that it will be 4 days from North Dakota to get them.



So, plan B is to drive to Havre tomorrow morning and buy a foot or two of 1.5 inch stress proof and build my own retrofit pins. FROG SNAX!


My old Atlas with the quarter inch rocker tool post will be earning its keep tomorrow. I just hope I can find my chunk of 1/4 HSS to make a couple tools out of.




On a positive note........the ground is so flipping hard that we have switched to using our other disc instead of the tool bar.

The old Krause is doing a good job of working ahead of the seeder. Slow, but effective. Hired man is headed to Fort Benton for parts in the morning! Nothing too serious.



We are seeding agian after a week long shut down. We just had to scramble to get the pre spraying done and everything worked at least once....mostly twice.


2000 acres of spring wheat to do near the end of May is not a pleasant feeling. Everything has been sprayed that needed sprayed. Everything that needed worked is worked.


My organic ground is a wreck.....just so happens that is where my non functioning Wishek is parked.

Whats the deal with that last picture Richard?

Is that a raised ditch? Contour farming?

terrace.........common as dirt in Ioway..grin

Jim, those grass banks are terraces. You are looking at the low side.
If it weren't bad luck Jim, you'd have no luck at all.

Whats the purpose of the terrace?


As far as bad luck goes....yes, sometimes.


I did not become a machinist, welder, mechanic, fabricator and Human resource manager because I was looking for hobbies!

Pure survival.

The terries hold back heavy rains, prevent soil erosion. These are tiled out.

most of Iowa is in corn/beans......and alot of the ground is pretty steep.........the terraces limit water runoff and erosion

For Jim, years back I felt really bad at supper time, there guys came on TV, and somehow, I cheered up a bunch.

Thats pretty good.


I twisted off pretty good yesterday....but I have it together now.

The Steiger’s been busy the last few days.

[/img][/img]

Saw a friend in town earlier. He said that they are trying to work some ground with tall stubble like that.

It held so much snow that it is still mud.


My ground is all like cement.

Jim, the bottom-stuck was at about 11pm and we hadn’t seen that wet spot. The top-stuck was me getting a little greedy and trying to turn once I’d passed our SxS tracks which were the no-go line.

The tracks are a little past worn on the Cat which doesn’t help.

Anybody have a miracle cure for a respiratory infected cow?

We’ve been injectng her with penicillin for two weeks now and been to the vet twice. She still is short of breath, foaming at the mouth, and sticks her tongue out after walking anywhere.

Vet just says bad infection and were lucky she’s not tits up.

He's Haw was an after dinner staple at our house in the 70’s Dad always wanted Dinner done by a certain time so we could watch it.

Where oh where are you tonight......

Draxxin. If she dies after a dose of Draxxin, she was gonna die anyway.



I have seen critters act like that before. It might not be a respiratory infection at all, at least that might be why she wont respond to antibiotics.


More than once I have seen that and it ended up being congestive heart failure, or at times an infection of the pericardial sack.


Heck, even a virus of the pericardium can cause those symptoms.

Thanks Jim, see if I can run some down tomorrow.

Be warned.....its very expensive!

Jim, you didn't mention Vet. MD as one of your hobbies.

Nobody’s got a piece of DOM tubing you can make a bushing out of?

Where near the Sweet Grass hills are you located?

Just in from planting beans. I need a shower. I look like I'm in blackface

I had sunglasses on however, so I also look a bit like a coon!

Started out with 1.5 inch stress proof.

Turned down to one inch on one side.

Bored out a 1.5 inch piece to make a bushing.

Individual pieces.

Assembled.

Selfie with functioning disc!

Good job Jimmy. I'm proud of you..

W. Bill

Nice machining, Jim!

Jeez Jim kicking ass. That was good work. My dad used to be a machinist for Boeing before he came back to farm. Rain update. Zero. Zilch. Notta. The Ego waffle. The donut hole. The big 0. Pastures look like it’s mid October. I’d say we have 10 more days without rain before we got to start selling cows and the crops start to die off. Have never seen anything like it. Hay will also be zero. Mother Nature really has us bent over again this year.

Spraying today out of the Rhino..

Hot SOB with the engine heat coming up between the seats.

That's kinda nice in winter.... But it ain't winter anymore.

Who makes a cooler operating UTV?

Anyone?

I never had a heat problem with the Gator XUV 620i or the current Kubota RTV X900 diesel. Can you get a test drive on something else? That's the way to find out.

Gonna have to do something...

If it's 100* outside, then you have 175* heat coming up on you, it makes you think about shopping.

I sat on backhoes for years and years in the summer. Your ass is well done at the end of the day.

I have a 2013 Polaris Ranger, and have used it a lot here on the farm. I've never had a concern with heat. Now, we don't have many 100 degree days here, but we do have plenty of days in the 90's, so I'd think that if it was going to get hot, I would have noticed.

This stuff is cool but I still don't know why you guys just don't go to the grocery store like everybody else.

Mee Likee!

Lots of people have those motors for free down here too....

Wear one out, go get another.

Jim, Jim, Jim, in that selfie, you're supposed to be SMILING. Nice metalwork, be proud of yourself and SMILE next time.

Where, and how did you learn the machining skills Big Jim?

Dave, Big Jim can look any whey he likes! I ain't agonna tell him different.

Nice.

Or as my buddy Bob would say: “Looks store-bought”

Sorry man.

Starting to dry out here too. Cant find moisture to put the seed into.


We learned last year to trust your instincts and have a plan. Sounds like you have one already.


Good luck.

I am a pretty poor excuse for a machinist Richard!

My dad taught himself and had a friend who was a machinist. He would ask him questions and they would do work together.

Dad kind of showed me some things, the rest is just trial and error. Mostly self taught.

I am reading backwards!


Nicely done JC, that is WAY da fuuck outta my pay grade!

Seeding central this weekend, getting late danmit!




C, I was hoping you guys got something and was watching the radar all last week. Sucks, no other way around it. Big old lightning show across the river right now, they are getting douched and we have got maybe less than a tenth.

It was a hot one this afternoon.

Loaded and going with the wind up a gradual incline and the ol' Versatile got warm each pass. Crowding 210F so I resorted to killing the A/C and that dropped it 5F, just enough to stop the warning light!

6 minutes later hit the other end, spin around and crank the A/C back on!

You look very wise......and sweaty.

I look like I have a receding hairline.




Here's an interesting fun farm fact.


Fixing fence on a creek bottom.


A recorded count of 32 ticks within 1-2 hours.


All crawlers, maybe 1 hooked up.



Shattered old records.


Creepy!

And looking at radar maybe a storm headed up to the far NE corner?!


I hope you catch it C!

Time for a rain dance in Plentywood country.

Wife is watching TV.


Flash flood warning for Garfield and McCone counties(to the south).

Nothing to speak of here.

We got 1 tenth...of a tenth.

I refuse to use hundredths.......as of now.

Looked at the weather....big storms!

Hey Jim,
You mention organics. Are you growing legumes for humans?
Or, is this livestock food to meet requirement to label meat as organic?


My Brother-in-law says how you can't make much farming.
I keep telling him he can't make much trying to compete with
IBP. He has a nice Pa. hill farm, and is too set in the "old" ways.

We are 150 miles from Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and D.C. those people
will pay stupid amounts of money for grass fed beef and organic anything.
He needs to get in their markets.

Dillon, yes the lentils I have grown were for human consumption.

No pulse crops this year though.


I only have one farm that is certified organic, and so far we have only raised spring wheat on it. It is a wreck this year, like everything else.


We tried the grass fat thing here, selling some beef. This area is so poor that folks buy beef by the cut, not by the quarter. Even though they can get better beef for less money buying from me.

We are not set up for retail cuts.


A few years ago Gabe Brown gave a half a day talk that I attended.

Its sounds corny but attending that talk changed my life. Made me excited about agriculture again. We focus on sustainability and profit now, not production.

We quit fallowing land, we stock pile forage for winter grazing, pasture calve on green grass, rotate crops, plant cover crops and so forth.


The only down fall for us is how bloody poor it is here. Folks wont buy our eggs if they cost more than you can buy at the grocery store!

I buy fresh eggs from our neighbors across the street I pay a buck a dozen above what they cost at the store. But the quality is beyond compare. They are longtime livestock ranchers. Few years ago we had a real mild winter and their hens where laying out of control. At that point they were just trying to give the eggs away because they couldn’t even sell enough at the local farmers markets. Eggs in the stores were going for 98cents locally.

Hell, I'm givin' eggs away free.

Chickens are laying 6 doz. a week.

We may eat 8-9 eggs a week.

I'd rather give 'em away than be bothered by folks driving up wanting to buy them.

Farm eggs sell for about $2 doz here.

That’s a good price for farm fresh eggs. Back when all the kids were at home In highschool and all in sports we’d burn through three dozen eggs a week. Heck a Sunday morning breakfast was one dozen itself. Our ranching neighbors tried to stop taking money for the eggs years ago during that time as they are big sports boosters of the high school. They got tired of the gifts showing up on their porch and relented.

Having enough city people around is kinda the secret to this organic farming stuff. Most rural people don't fall for the sales pitch. It's like the angus beef being better than the other breeds. It's hard to BS PEOPLE RAISED IN THE COUNTRY. ED K

I wonder how many a black baldy crossbred end up in a purebred angus package.

Jim, we, unfortunately, are in transition here. The locals are mostly lower income. We have way too many imports, ruining the place.
Not enough of them to really market organic to. A couple places are surviving doing that. But they are all hippies that got Pappy's farm.
Funny that, hippies marketing to the Man.

Anyhow, our markets are 100 miles away. Christmas time one of dad's friends used to take a pickup and trailer load of firewood to Pittsburgh, set in the mall and sell it.
All you can put on one arm $10. In the '80's he would come home with a weeks pay, in cash, for about a days effort. Same thing with sweet corn. Here it was around $1/dz there $3. Pull a trailer load out there for 2 hours sell for 3-4, come home.

I have a cousin that lives 20 odd miles from Hagerstown Md. He has made a fortune being a hillbilly in the city.
He had 20 or 30 acres that he truck farmed, and land here that he cut wood on to sell there. The stuff that we would sell here,
would bring 2-3 times more money for him.

Like at the meat market?

I never saw them claim it was "purebred Angus"...

It's enough of a stretch to call it "Angus Beef".

I think the criteria for that is that the animal must have at least a patch of black hide now..


The royal family now qualifies as Angus Beef.

But what about all the red angus? Do they qualify for the label?

Not according to my cattle buyer.

He'll take 'em, but when the red calves start getting plentiful, he warns that he'll start cutting them out.

He wants to see black.

50% + black hided - is what I've been told for years.

Still having trouble with the new old Wishek.

Welded up a depth cylinder today. Cracked out at the base. Been welded before.

I ground all that schit off and did it again. Pretty weenie looking weld from the factory. I still cant believe they charge 1000 dollars for them.



Got three loose gangs. The end spacers are worn out so the nut wont get tight.

Another trip to the parts store!

Hired man is having good luck with the light disc working ahead of the seeder. Dad is making good time on the seeder.




Hopefully get the Wishek going tomorrow. My organic ground is a wreck of elephantine proportions!

Here you are Jim.

Hahaha!


Its like he was singing just for me.

Stoppin' Tom Connors, dead now, a Canadian legend.

I have been hailed out lots and lots of times.


The worst one was when my crab apple tree got hailed out.



No crab apple jelly for the next year.

Corn day here!

Today is Monday and it is also a holiday which means the tire shop isn't open(not too mention fertilizer...).



Pain in the ass but the wise old man had a spare tube hidden away(front tire of course).

Did you folks have a White planter Sam? How thick do you plant?

Draxxin is very good and very high. I bought a 50 cc bottle and came close to having a stroke when I paid for it. That bottle has saved a few animals though.

Jim

Richard, all I know is we loaded 12 bags into the old IH Cyclonado and my dad took off.

50 acres and he figured 12 bags would be halfway.

What is the seedbed Sam, is it corn. on corn? Triple stack seed?

PS, I don't need to ask about AC on the tractor.

Corn on corn, Wilbur Ellis spread the blend.

It requires a fair amount of fertilizer.



Yesterday.

Very nice looking field Sam.


Very clean. You guys really got on top of your spraying this year.



1000 acres to go for us.........

Be under 4 digits by tomorrow.

The organic ground will be last. Only damn acres I have that would turn a profit this year. If it aint one thing....its two things!


Fellow doing the pre working reported that he found some moisture and mellow soils today though. Nice change from the concrete we have been running in.

Jim, trust me I'm cherry pickin' field vids!


Plugged that drill about about 25-30 times so far this spring...


We hire out all the dry land spraying to a guy who is setup and always show up ASAP.


He can get it done way faster than we'd be able to.

Around here buyers like the black baldies. My herd is all black, and that's because my son insists on buying Angus bulls from a customer of his. I may just pull rank the next time and buy a Hereford bull to put on our black cows. But, the black calves sell about as well as the baldies.

Sam, your picture reminds me of a recent purchase, a JD 7300 6 row ("hobby" farming) with a row marker. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a planter with a row marker around here anymore.

Finally finished 1st crop hay this last Saturday. Started at 9:00 am and I crawled outta the chopper cab at 8:30 pm... Dang - I'm gettin' old for these 12 hr. days... Very nice crop considering we'd had nearly zero rain since May 1st or earlier.. Some fields running 6T+/acre.. Loading big wagons with 40,000# in about 8 minutes.. Sumbish can really go through hay (CLAAS 940 Jaguar).

Thursday, the fields I ran seemed to have enough metal in the rows to build a Model-A.. I ended up with 4 electric fence posts, two sets of bail/pickup teeth, about a half-dozen pieces of old barbed wire, several pieces of electric fence wire, a very large washer, and a 3' section of some kind of pipe/beater from an old manure spreader!! I have NO idea how the cutter went over it w/o hitting it.

Only 600 acres left and then...

[/img]

We have been told that we have 4 or 5 more days of over 100 degree days.

Only good thing about this year so far is that the weeds have been knocked back.
Only thing green is under irrigation.

We were able to get all wrapped up last weekend. Finally caught a rain yesterday just in time as I see the low spots had all started in the durum and the hills were sitting in dry dirt. Got about .70 at my parents and the neighbor by my place claims 2 inches. It came so fast it ran over the roads and the washouts ran the soil down. But I don’t even care. Whole attitude change in one day.

Damn!

Looks pretty new too!

Bad weld?

Looks like it cracked right in the seam of the weld.

Glad you got some rail C Hell.


We have not gotten any yet. Just been dusting it in.


Been kind of an odd spring.


Might get some showers tomorrow.

I ran out of fertilizer so I came home early. Seeded today because my seeder (Dad) had to leave for a trip.

Still, could be worse.

Jim, those weeds are stealing all your moisture!

Appears to be mostly yellow mustard?



We had a little summer fallow that was almost out of hand but my dad was able to pull the toolbar through it. Today I see a fresh flush of Russian thistle popped up after the pre-spray but with the 12" sweeps on the old Concord I bet I killed most of them. Some idiot was leasing the farm across the county road and he had a helluva mess last year. The entire road ditch is filled in with tumble weeds and of course a bunch blew across our land. Fuuckin' bastard.

Did break the main 6" air tube today, seed and fertilizer was momentarily blowing off the rear window, that was a first! Luckily it was a relatively easy fix and I was going again within an hour.




C, glad to hear you guys got a little relief!. Hopefully more is on the way!



Kroo, what make drill? That doesn't look good(obviously).

Some yellow mustard, some volunteer spring wheat and an ASS load of field pennycress.



I have never seen anything like it before. Its like it was seeded to weeds....no skips either.

By the time it dried out it was too hard to farm with a toolbar. Hence having to find a disc.


I still have to try and seed that.......

Field pennycress is what I believe we call fan weed.

Early season weed, we get it and purple mustard about the same time. And yes, it will fill in thicker than hell!

That ought to be covered under warranty...

Had to pull the windmill and replace the leathers yesterday..

Always amazes me how much work that is for replacing a small part... (it just happens to be at the bottom of the well)



My windmill guy had some new help. He wasn't much though... he didn't know tighten from loosen.

Ya looks like the weld had been cracked for a while. Some rust under the paint. We lost a day but did 400 acres yesterday to beat the rain.

It’s been raining here since 4:00am and calling for an inch.

The new look is hydraulic. That half of the seeder is now a nice medium brown.

Warranty. Ha ha . I bought a new swather a couple years before I quit farming. 210,000 dollars out the door. A swather is used for 2 or 3 weeks a year. The warranty on paper is one year but if it's only used 3 weeks that's the real world warranty. It don't break the rest of the year because it's not used. Warranties my ass . Ed k

Ran out of fertilizer last night.

Waiting for the rain......so far it is going around us.

I hate getting fertilizer delivered in the rain. Always clumps.

I guess the worst that can happen is I lose a day waiting on rain that is going around us.

Well, besides the 800 acres of wheat that a half inch of rain and three days of wind will crust like concrete.

Barry's post has me wondering, how deep are your wells? We have a 463 foot deep drilled well. A three horse submersible pump on three hundred feet of 1 1/4" pipe.

I wish I had a windmill.


I read where Aeromotor was producing agian.

I have a lawsuit on Case now, over warranty.

3 wells at the ranch here.

They are about 100'.

Only one has a windmill. Last time I had the leathers changed was 4 years ago. Not bad for this country.

Couple pics from yesterday.

The little storm in the background fizzled out but we got 3-4 tenths last night.




Haven't seen clouds like this since 2016.




My new pet.

Sam, dumb question, do you buy seed wheat, or save it? All the seeds, I'll ask about?

Not a dumb question Richard.


We use our own seed but some guys will buy fancy new varieties.

Man, I knew farming was tough, but seeing what you guys go through is illuminating.

Sam, I guess you didn't have a rifle in the cab of the tractor?

Sam needs one of these racks...

Nice that you're allowed to use your own seed... Can't here...

I always bought new seed every 3to 4 years. The yields and resistant packages improve all the time. If you use your own seed you can't sell that many bushel. If you buy seed it's a tax write off. Ed k

I was looking at the weather radar down here yesterday afternoon and got to thinking about this thread. Panned over to Montana and saw quite a bit of rain, some of it heavy. Hope some of y'all got some.

Over the two days we totalled a tenth.

Disappointed, we needed a bit more.

My coyote gun is still in the feed pickup.

Wonder if it would scare off the damn hawks and seagulls?...........




Paul, we've got a combined 1" during the last two nights and they are calling for more today.

It's been a true blessing and I honestly hope the rest of the guys around here in the drought zone have also got some much needed moisture.


Luckily my dad got the corn in the ground down on the river bottom(heavy soil...).

I have around 220 acres of wheat left to go which isn't bad, not complaining about the delay!




Speaking of wheat, what are you guys putting down for fertilizer?

We spread around 100lbs of urea and ran another 90lbs of 28/28 blend through the drill. Soil tests showed that the re-crop ground still had plenty of residual nitrogen from last years drought so we didn't spread any on that ground.

We run a 20-20 blend through the drills. Works out to 75 to 100 pounds per acre. Single chute with an Accra Plant type point on the drills, so thats about the upper limit.

If we ever get a chance to raise a crop again, unlike the last several years, we are set up to top dress with liquid through the sprayer.


It would add another 30 units or so.

With the leaching rains the past couple of years, we need nitrogen right now. Using some lime for PH as well.

Dry SOB right now, so the nitrogen ought to hold awhile.

Hurricane season starts today...

We could use some tropical moisture about now. Just no Cat 4 hurricanes....

99/100 in the gauge this morning and calling for some more this morning here.

With the late start this year there was a fertilizer shortage and long lines in Shelby.

We used mostly urea and 11-48-0, but had to use a few other blends because of the shortage. All of it was at 100lbs.

Sam O, glad to hear that you guys got some relief. Hopefully it continues for a while.

I am glad you guys got some rain.


We watched those storms split and go around us all day and night.

Now the 30 mph winds are here.


Still waiting on the C Hell rain report!

We got over a inch the last few days, neighbor just seeded his hay field before the rain. He's been fighting weeds and had to get a few dry days to get on it and spray.

Sam, that Cloud pic is epic!

Too much water here.........over 3 inches so far this week, and more still in the forecast. The only thing I'm glad for is that I need to do some fencing, and the posts will drive better.

Thank you all for the reports and info!


We might have got another tenth this afternoon, big nasty just went 20-30 miles to the east which is fine.

Somebody must have heard all my whining about no rain. Things have gotten a little crazy the other way now. I have registered 4 inches of rain in the last 4 days. Water standing everywhere. Low spots are drowned out. Trying to get cows out but everything is mud. One extreme to the other. In a week time.

I'll trade ya some dust for mud!

Frog snacks!

Sorry about that.


We once got a rain so bad that it washed the seed out of the field and into the coulees and barrow pits.

Raised a nice crop......in the ditch!

I sitting in the seeder taking my lunch now.

About an hour late.

Had to set the points on the fertilizer truck first.

Its like I am living in 1980's Russia.

The share croppers on my farm in western Oklahoma said it was so dry there was no wheat crop, they just bailed it into hay.

Ya I’m afraid definitely washed some stuff away. Not complaining pastures have perked up and the crops are really coming around.

Toad stranglin' gully washer!

North West Missouri and we are drier than a bone.

3/10's of rain today will barely save the late planted soy beans.For now.

The leaves of the corn are rolling up almost all day now.

The cells have been spotty and split around us almost all Spring.

The good news is that planting went easy and all the crops were in early.

Between the lack of rain and the pigs I am beginning to think we may lose another hay crop. Pigs trampled the oats into the ground and are trying to do the same with Sudan. I have people hunting them to at least try and keep the numbers down. I don't charge either. Looked out the back door last evening and there was a big boar down at the creep feeder. His mistake. 1 down and 500 more to go.

Jim

I hear ya.

We aren't going to hunt our way out of this problem.

Hunting hardly puts a dent in them.

Just picked son Jake up for dinner. Starting to cut the hay.

I was doing pretty good till this afternoon.

Really struggling now.



I was not ready to be burnt up two years in a row.

Drought weighs on a man like nothing else.

It's oppressive... Clear up until it ends.

Facing the same down here...

Hang in there Jim I hope you can catch some rains.

Sam is wet and Jim is still dry. I was kind of excited watching that big yellow thing cut northeast on the map the other night, but I guess Montana is a big darn state.
Feels like a "normal" June around here, getting hosed every other day, just had a thundersplash while I was over here working late. Soggy walk home but I'll take that over a dry June anytime.

We got 2 3/4 inches of rain in 45 minutes yesterday, 7 and 1/2 inches last week, we are azz deep in mud and watching the topsoil head down stream, WTF !

It was too wet early in the year, but now we're just about right. It was wet last week, but supposed to be dry this week. Here's a couple of pics from my farm.....corn and tobacco.

Ran out of fertilizer so I came home early. Sort of a silly day, yesterday too.


I was seeding out of the bin because the seed cleaning outfit was closed for the weekend. It was weedy so I quit about noon, deciding to wait for cleaned seed.

Came home......sort of twisted off. Dry, dusty and depressing.

Decided to take the semi load of wheat to Havre so it would be there first thing in the morning. Blew out a tire on the trailer half way there and limped it in to town.

Was going to stay in Havre and eat dinner but there was a fire alarm going off at the retirement home.

Turned out to be popcorn....thank god.


Went up town and had a crummy dinner.

Came home and found I had trapped everyone's favorite cat in a dog proof.

Frog snacks!

Tire shop put two new trailer tires on and we took it up to the cleaning outfit this morning.

Hired man called and disc tractor wont start. Cat mechanic says transfer pump. Three days.

Seeded out what fertilizer I had on and came home to my outside chair.

Got home just in time for this little bastard.


Daughter says the snake tagged her boot.

Beer time.

Hmm....so thats what tobacco looks like in the wild!

I bet that's burley Tobacco set out by a setter that had two people riding it, reaching for plants and trying to keep up?

Its not a seed but a seedling?

What kind of Tobacco James?

I am at a lost to why those of you with pig problems don't won't us to kill them ? I understand the part about controlling who's on your land, but Texas fever and making a dime on every dollar, well let the hogs do what hogs do. I know nothing is free in Texas!

Burley Tobacco plants are grown in a special Bed, so they were when we raised it. Those beds were 50 feet or longer each and the ground was treated with gas or chemicals to assist the plants and to control weeds. About May or so we pulled the plants during planting time and used a setter behind the tractor. Our setter seated two people side by side.

Back in the day on steep non tractor ground we used a manual hand setter, what a bastard, you had to carry the plants and water along the rows.

I'd bet that's Burley Tobacco, if its in Kentucky......

Just looked at the Montana weather radar. Looks like good rain over much of the state. Jim, did you get any?

Dang Jim I didnt know y'all had rattlers

I dont know why, but I had a feeling earlier that it was going to be a bad rattler year.

A couple weeks ago a fellow up north of me was bit in the leg and nearly died. They mercy flighted him.

Now today my daughter gets bit on the toe of her boot.

I have pretty much been vindicated on the topic of wearing REAL boots and shoes when outside.

Storm just went over and we got 1 and a half one hundredths.

We got almost an inch last night.

Don't think it will last long but is was needed.

Now that the pump is primed maybe we can get some more,3 or 4 inches would be nice.

Jim that sounds a lot like our last few days putting out pairs. Had about 30 calves with frozen ears from the brutal spring. Most of which had lost their tags. Trying to pair cow and calves together when the calves don’t have tags is not an easy task. Ended up retagging them as we went but. Ended up with at the end one cow. With one calf that was not hers. Checked every pasture trying to find an upset cow and calf that we mismatched.... but have not found anything bellering bad. And nothing from the real close bunches came back home. So hauled them out to our pasture with 103 pairs and am hoping it will correct itself. Took a 10 Hour day to do a 1 hour job. That’s efficiency at its best.

We just caught a rain haven’t checked the gauge. I’m guessing will be .30-40 maybe in about 20 mins. Real nasty clouds lots of wind

That's burley, but it was set out by 4 Mexicans riding on a 4 row setter. The newer tobacco setters are designed where you only need one person per row to drop the plants, as compared to the old setters that required one person per row. Now, if a person was good enough, and the tractor driver drove slow enough, one person could handle a row by themselves.

We grow 3 types of tobacco here....burley, dark fire cured, and dark air cured. Burley is used for cigarettes, the other for smokeless and cigars. The money is in dark fire cured, but it's also requires the most labor. It is cured in barns using smoke and heat, which means that every year, several tobacco barns are lost to fire. A good crop of dark fired, with a good contract, can easily be worth $10-12,000 an acre. That's gross, not net.

Tobacco plants are started from seed in greenhouses, and grown on water beds in trays that hold around 200 plants. They're usually cut off a few times to toughen them up, and also to regulate their growth, before being set out in the field. A tobacco setter drops water around the plant to help it live. The old way of growing tobacco, where the plants were grown outside in plant beds, meant that each plant had to be pulled from the bed by hand. Not only was that time consuming, but the plants did not have as good a root system as do the plants grown in greenhouses.

I'll try and get some pictures of tobacco being set out if I can. The neighbor who rents my cropland still has another field to set out, so maybe I can catch him in the field and get a pic.

Ahhhhh, the Mossberg strikes again!


Ain't farming fun? The bigger the outfit, the more things to go wrong/break/need upkeep. On the farm I work for part-time I am always amazed at how patient and easy-going Tom is during planting/harvest times. When 7-8 tractors are working at the same time, pulling wagons, planters, tillage equipment or working some machine it's an every-day occurrence that something breaks down. I don't know how he does it.

I have no clue about anything with planting tobacco, other than the place where I hunted in Kentucky when I was stationed there in 01-02 having a small patch. Isn't this saying the same thing for both setters?

JamesJr pretty much summed it up, sounds like he has a lot of experience growing different types of Tobacco. I am just adding a little info here as to some of my experiences with Burley way back years ago, I was a young boy back then but still helped out. I am not trying to dispute any of JamesJr's info, things are done a lot different now, like the plants being grown in a green house, until time to set out. We grew them in beds because we didn't have green houses and thats the way it had been done for many years. I am sure there could be different harvest methods that he does, I suppose he has to still put the Burley tobacco on sticks in the field? I understand that flue cured leaves are pulled off the stalk in the field. Flue cured is grown further east in my state several miles from here, but even less farmers grow it these days. The farmer that we lease our deer hunting property from, use to grow over 100 acres of flue cured tobacco years ago, but he took the buy out and does not grow any now.

Yelp, that's how far tobacco growing has come over the years, at least for the ones that still grow it, those are mainly big acreage guys that buy up the acreage from the smaller farmers. Use to about every farming family grew Burley tobacco around here in these hills. It was a great way to supplement the income, for some that was the main income. There was the buy out years ago and its pretty rare to see Burley tobacco in the fields around here these days.


When I was a kid, my grandpa grew about 10 acres of Burley, we had a one row setter that two people rode behind the tractor. My uncle also grew tobacco, but he used an old hand setter which as slow, thank goodness he didn't have much acreage. Of course the tobacco grew tall in the rolls, some good crops were way over my head and had leaves wider than both my hands put together, thumb to thumb. Up in the summer we had to go through and get the suckers off of the plants. Late summer we cut the stalks, wooden tobacco sticks were driven in the ground and you put a sharp spud on the end and speared the tobacco stalks onto the wooden stakes. Left it in the field for a few days for it to wilt, then loaded it on a truck or trailer, hauled it to the barn and hung it on tear poles to cure out, usually till November. I mentioned the barn tear poles, they were spaced close enough together so that the tobacco sticks would reach on two ends. Also there could be 3 or 4 levels of tear poles, depending on how tall the barn was. That meant that a person had to stand (straddle across one foot on two different poles) on each level of tear poles in order to hang it in the barn, they had to have good balance. A Person at ground level (worst job dirt and falling debry fell in ones face) reached it up to the first guy, then he reached it on up to another then so on till they filled the top level of the tear poles. After they filled each level they just worked their way down to the barn floor.
When we got it down in November for market prep, we put it in a special room in the barn and started working it. You had to work it when it was in case (higher air moisture content) so the leaves were not so brittle. Way back in the day, we tied the tobacco leaves together, had three or four grades of leaves. Once the leaves were bundled together we put them on the old Tobacco wooden baskets. Those baskets were pretty dang heavy, but that is how it was hauled to the market. Then some smart person decides to invent a wooden tobacco bailer, it was basically a press that used a car bumper jack. You took the top off, put the tobacco leaves in and you put the top back on, attached the jack and pressed that down making a nice square bail of tobacco, that had strings holding it tight together. Those bails were a lot easier to handle and load, that was the new method of getting the tobacco to market, which I am guessing JamesJr does this, unless there is another method, that's come along since we quit tobacco farming.

Sorry a long post there, just my experience as a country boy at a young age, growing Burley Tobacco.

In my post I said I let folks hunt pigs for free.

Jim

We got 1 1/2" Sunday night with very little run off. Was really glad to get it. Maybe the remaining Sudan will come on up. Lord, please send more rain.

Jim

Well in texas, you are one of......well one, and thank you ! If I ever get back there I will be in touch.

My bad.......I meant to say that the older tobacco setters required 2 people per row. The newer ones are a different design.

BigR, sounds like you and I must be pretty close in age, because that's pretty much how we did it too. While the harvest methods have pretty much remained the same.......you still cut it with a tobacco knife, put it on a stick using a spear (we call them spikes), hang it in a barn to cure, and then start the stripping process when it comes in case. Today's tobacco is marketed different, or at least it is here. The stripping method (which is removing the leaves from the stalk) is a lot easier, as most farmers use a wheel to hang the tobacco on, and it keeps a constant supply going. The buyers want it in bales that will weigh around 600-700 pounds. Whereas it used to take me all winter to strip my tobacco out, the big operations of today are usually finished by the first of December. Of course, they use migrant labor, and have a dependable labor source, something I never had.

The tobacco companies today have a much stricter tolerance on the tobacco leaves they buy. They cannot contain any foreign material. That means no pigeon feathers, weeds, dried up tobacco worms. or any other substance that we used to see on the tobacco. They inspect each bale, document any foreign material in the tobacco and can cancel a buyers contract over it. It's a much different ballgame, but it's still hard work.

In most cases, I'd rather have the pigs than the hunters...

The pigs are smarter and cause less damage. And don't sue the landowner...

Are those feral hogs any good to eat? I think I have an opinion
.

Some people eat them. My son will spend 4 hours cleaning, dressing and cutting up a nasty ol' rank boar.

I know better. The buzzards don't complain much though, and they make excellent coyote trapping bait.


I guess I learned too much about the diseases and parasites they carry when working for the govt trying to kill 'em.

Just bought two cows. So I'm pretty much a rancher now.

Any recommendations on hats? Preferably something really tall. Maybe some feathers...

Not yet.

Ya gotta get a bull too before you're a rancher.

Two head? The bigger the hat, the smaller the herd. Better get a super large one.

And, borrow money, lots of money.

C, we actually didn't even tag calves for a week because of the cold temps. I guess I did tag a couple and sure enough they both lost part of their ear right up to and including the tag.

We ended up with 95 calves that didn't get tagged during calving. Which is more than normal for us and creates a bit of a nightmare.

When we brand they each get a tag with an X1, X2, X3, etc. all the way up to X95.

Then the fun starts.


After branding we'll let about 10 cows in with the calves and try to mother them up. Of course you have all kinds of moochy calves and calves that won't nurse. It takes a keen eye to figure out what is really a pair. And then you might have a few sets of twins that you don't even know about....

And we haul them out ASAP by the semi load to the big pastures so fuuck-ups are a bad deal. Pairing off loads sucks. Grass out the gate would be a dream.


This afternoon we got the last semi load out, what a relief. Still have 25-30 pair to haul out by horse trailer to local pasture but that is a piece of cake.

Caught up enough with the cows to maybe start farming again!



Side note, the last of the bred heifers calved last week, about damn time!

But can't complain, we went 55 for 56. Lost one calf at birth and one old calf got prolonged pneumonia and died. Stuck a bum on the one and will re-breed the other. First time ever we're keeping every single heifer.

Not a bad mother in the bunch.

Roy Munson Moment........

Lol. Appreciate the advice, fellas.
I'm thinking about a big crushed velevt job. Yella with purple and green feathers. Maybe some chrome accents.

Cow pimp style!

What are the plans for the two cows?

(I don't own a cowboy hat...)

Yes....you should get back to farming Sam.

I could use the company.

We used to haul about 75 pair out.

It was always a trick.

I like pasture calving now and don't miss tagging a little bitty bit.

Make 'em fat and then butcher around October, November.

Sell one and eat one.

Jim, how many acres you have left to get in the ground? Calving been going good?


We have about 220 acres of wheat to get in and a little 20 acre patch of hay barley down on the bottom. I'm halfway afraid to look under the (leaky?)tarp on the fertilizer truck box......

And the pre-spray burn is wearing off on the stuuf I need to seed and I halfway want to hit it again and maybe not have to spray after the crop comes up but that is wishful thinking.....


The first seeded hay barley is ready to get sprayed so after sorting, vaccinating and loading out we went to work on one of the old Spra Coupes.





Mooner, you bought cows or steers/heifers or what?

You ain't gonna fatten up some damn old cow to eat are you?!

dry cows eat good.....

Anything older than 4 years and I vote burger cow.


Steaks get too big!


You guys still dry Don?

About a year old, 900 pound Hereford steers. I think the were calved last March or April.

They look tasty. Guess I'll find out in 5 or 6 months!

Steers, and cows are two different critters.

Finished my conventional wheat today.

Get started on the organic tomorrow.

Going to rent a Degelamn pro till contraption to try and make a seed bed.


Calving has been going well. Found a few dead ones but not bad.

We will walk them home in a week or so and brand.

900 pounds now?

They are going to be big when they are fisnished.

What are you feeding them?

Mooner, you got trans gender bovines!




Richard, learning curve....





Jim, I was talking to my super farmer buddy the other day and I think he said those Degelman's were great for breaking up CRP and ANYTHING else.

I can't remember the exact model but I believe he said 22" discs that sit almost vertical and they have a roller type finisher/compacter deal.

You can pull them at like 10mph(?) but they require quite a bit of horsepower.

Sam, it get my hackles up, can you remember not knowing a cow from a bull, from a heifer, from a steer,----. rant over.

Thats what I understand Sam.

We pulled the Wishek over most of the ground. It was terrible, you saw the pictures.


Now that we have it broke up some we will try the Degelman device. Hoping that we can seed behind it. Otherwise I will have to pull the light disc over it twice.


You have to pull them at least 8 or they wont do any good I guess.

Hopefully my 8650 will pull it. It is by far the smoothest riding tractor I own.

The Challengers have much more power but are rough at high speeds.

They told us 10 horse power per foot. Its a 28 footer.

The John Deere might juuuuuuust pull it.

I tell you what boys, I am having a hell of a hard time plowing under any green stuff right now.

I dont really feel like spraying it either.




Got a terrible feeling like I will be needing anything I can get my hands on for feed this year.

Richard, I don't ever remember shooting da turdy point ....doe.



Jim, curious to hear how this contraption works out, good luck with it and I hope you get rained out....... Make sure to take a pic or two!



Later.

Steers, bulls, and heifers.....I thought they were all cows!

Cows are just heifers? I'm gonna need a crash course!

They are on pasture and get about half a can of spent barley a day. A can being a 32 gallon rubber maid. They're loving the lush pasture. Just gonna play it and see how they do. They were vacc'd and wormed before we got them. Gonna put out a mineral block and a sulpher block.

All bullsbit aside, happy for any advice!

I think Wabigoon slapped the hat off my head. Lol.

They are all cows when addressed collectively. Otherwise, a cow is a female who’s caved, a heifer is a female who hasn’t calved, a bull is a male with his nuts, a steer is a male without his nuts, and calf refers to both unweaned males or females.

Technically, it would be acceptable to refer to your herd as cows even though it is the smallest possible herd.

For example. It’s time to feed the cows.

Got it. Thanks for the lesson in proper bovine nomenclature! (Picks hat up off the ground)

Spelunking bishes.....

You will catch on to the jargon Mooner.

We seeded hay barley directly into a 93 acre slough. Had been haying it but lots of Reed canary and poor type slough hay. Sprayed with 48 ounces of roundup first and went into it. Some of it got clumpy so I’m rolling it along with the lentils in the surrounding field. Lentils are really looking nice were seeding May 4th. Hay barley was more like May 24th.

Jim i’ve Heard those degelmen Protills are pretty sweet. Those vertical tillage tools suppose to really prep stuff. I just saw a video versatile came out with one now called he Fury. I like the rolling basket idea on the back as well. Hoping rain is coming your way. Seems like I just got out of this flipping tractor now got 1500 acres of lentils to roll. See my barley and peas both ready to be sprayed. Lentils could all be sprayed but you are suppose to wait between rolling and spraying as it is too much stress in the plant.

C, you farm some nasty sloops

Haha this is the one flat piece on the farm. Get stuff done twice as fast down here makes me feel like a real farmer

The rolling baskets catch hell if you have drainage ditches to go through. All the weigh transfers to them and they don't Ike it. Ed

Got a couple tenths today.

Real runaway!

We finally got enough rain here to get the Sudan pushing up. Ground finally stayed wet for 3 days in a row. Looks like we may be in for some more tonight. Large storm north of Abilene and heading towards us. Praying for more. You can never get enough. Good luck Jim.

Jim

Got an inch and 1/10 today.

Some within 10 miles got 3-5 inches......

The hay and pasture I seeded last month likes it.

Jim, that ol' John Deere was buckin' and spinnin'!


I just got in from finishing up the spring wheat for the year. Weatherman said big storms and they were almost right. Watched a huge, nasty sonuvabitch build this evening and I guess it had ping pong ball hail and 50-90mph wind in places. 2-3" of rain, sounded like a mess.


We didn't get a drop....


Took a few pics and will download later.


Looking at the radar now it looks like C might be in for a doozy......

Where ya at, buddy? Hogs would be some big fun.