The Good Life v.farming

GTPpower

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Jun 5, 2012
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Yeah, it's not fun, especially for my dad because he feeds them everyday. But it's not like we can keep them as pets. They are 1600lbs now, and like to chase me sometimes. They'll only get worse with that too.

The other option is to sell them at the sale barn, but they'll just end up on the shelf at the grocery store.
 
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GTPpower

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We needed something to feed the cattle for a few days, so dad went out and made a few bales.
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I just threw them in the back of his 1990 f250 lariat. It's 2wd, 351w 5 speed manual, and 75,000 original miles on it. It only gets driven a few hundred a year anymore.

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GTPpower

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Yesterday we did something different.

Water pipes that run underground to various places on the farm will sometimes spring a leak. We got a new puppy, and he has been exploring everything. So last week he came out of a shed completely black from mud. We found there was a water pipe leaking under this shed. We call it a brooder house. That might be a Czech word, or just an area thing, but it's for raising baby chicks.

Luckily, we didn't get chicks this year, so the shed was empty. This building was set in place maybe 60 years ago, and there is no foundation under it, so most of the floor structure is rotten. But, after some work, we were able to prop it up on some new 4x4's, lift it up and move it to get to the leak.

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Here's where the puppy found a cool spot to lay.

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I've never seen the water create such a clear leak. You can easily see a hole in the ground here and water is bubbling up through it.

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So after we can fix the pipe, we will have to figure out what to do with the shed. It needs a whole new floor, and it's not going to be easy to replace it without just knocking the shed down.
 

GTPpower

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This is called "side dressing.". Basically, it's fertilizing the corn when it's up. In about another week, we won't be able to get into the fields to do this because the corn will be too tall. But, corn uses something like 30% of it's nitrogen after tassel, so the longer you can wait, the better.

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This machine uses a ground-driven pump and shoots a stream of fertilizer right behind a coulter that runs in-between each row.

We fill it up with a nurse tank. It's run on a single cylinder gas engine. It takes maybe 10-15 minutes to put 500-600 gallons in.

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And, this is how you bring your day to a screeching halt.

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After a couple trips to the field with the air compressor, dad thought we should just bring the grain truck there. It has air brakes, and we can use the compressor on it to fill tires. So, got it blown back up, and I was able to limp it home.

Found a nice slice in the sidewall from where it was leaking.

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They are supposed to come out this morning and put new rear tires on it.
 

GTPpower

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Here's a few pictures of the crops coming up.


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We use a chemical called dicamba for a good portion of weed control. Roundup doesn't kill much anymore, so we have to go a different route. The bad part about dicamba is it likes to drift. We have to get certified to use it, but it's almost impossible to use it like they claim. The bad part about it drifting, if a neighbor has a field that doesn't have the extend trait (resistant to dicamba), it can hurt the beans. I saw quite a few fields that this happened to this year, and sadly we were the cause of a couple of them.

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You can see how the leaves are cupped.

These are unaffected.

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They looked rough for probably almost a month, but they pulled out of it, and I would guess they will do very well. Beans seem to like being stressed at certain points, and sometimes turn out better than beans that look healthy the whole season.


We didn't get really any rain in August, but got some nice rains the rest of the season. The crops all looked really good most of the year, so we are excited to see how they turn out.
 

sktchy

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Well damn....I haven't updated this in quite awhile.

We got new rear tires on the tractor. Got pretty lucky and found a pair local. These are 18.4-38's and are pretty hard to find this year.

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Hopefully these last another 30 years.
Man I hate to break it to you but they went to shit after they took the continental name off of those. Plan on running tubes and I hope your not doing no till. Otherwise I definitely missed this thread since I don't do alot of running around farms these days.
 
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sktchy

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Also yeah, take what you can get as far as any tractor tires go right now. Gonna get another shaft when they come back around just like when they were all gone in 2008 over some "rubber tree" bs. They doubled in price after that so I hope we don't see that again but sad to say I bet we do
 
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GTPpower

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Man I hate to break it to you but they went to shit after they took the continental name off of those. Plan on running tubes and I hope your not doing no till. Otherwise I definitely missed this thread since I don't do alot of running around farms these days.

Yeah, these were our only option. No tubes so far, but we'll see how that goes. This is our tillage tractor, so yeah it basically gets all the stalks and stubble.

Hopefully they will harden up some before spring. We had new Firestone fronts put on a few years ago, and they were out here like once a month fixing leaks and digging stalks out of them.
 

sktchy

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Yeah, these were our only option. No tubes so far, but we'll see how that goes. This is our tillage tractor, so yeah it basically gets all the stalks and stubble.

Hopefully they will harden up some before spring. We had new Firestone fronts put on a few years ago, and they were out here like once a month fixing leaks and digging stalks out of them.
Get a couple buckets of otr sealant, split a 5 bucket between two tires, Amerseal is probably best but any of the heavy duty slime will do and you can pump it in through the air/liquid valve stem. Chasing stubble leaks is endless and with slime they'll hold until somethin catastrophic happens, you just may have to pump em up after it sits for long periods of time. It's essentially a big ass lawnmower and the only reason big tire shops don't apply that rule to them is because they dont like dealing with taking slimy tires off and they make less when they can't rake you over for a couple hundred bucks every time you get poked again or they miss a hole. I however didn't used to give a shit and to me it was one less tire I had to fix until it was done for. I'd hook you up but I've only got a couple gallon jugs of it left. My old supply guy is a friend with a bitchin Foxbody tho and I'm sure he'd be happy to overnight a couple buckets if you decide it's somethin u wanna do.
 

sktchy

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They get harder as they age and it helps a bunch, they just dick u on the warranty for doing it. The front ones always take most of the heat anyway and they push the stalks flat. That'll be your saving grace there cuz runnin on a row will chew the lugs right off those ac85s. Loved mounting em tho they go on and off like butter and hardly ever need a bucket of goop to seat the beads
 
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GTPpower

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It's my favorite time of the year. All the hard work and long hours hopefully starts to pay off.

This combine is a 98 model year. We bought it in 99 with about 170 hours on it. I think it has about 2200 hours on it now.

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This head is new to us this year. We've only had a 15' before, so this 20' head makes a big difference, but it's definitely pushing the limits of what this combine can handle in some green areas.

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This is my field of beans this year....my first year of actually renting something.

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They ended up doing really well. I'm pretty happy with how it worked out.
 

sktchy

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It's my favorite time of the year. All the hard work and long hours hopefully starts to pay off.

This combine is a 98 model year. We bought it in 99 with about 170 hours on it. I think it has about 2200 hours on it now.

View attachment 101926

This head is new to us this year. We've only had a 15' before, so this 20' head makes a big difference, but it's definitely pushing the limits of what this combine can handle in some green areas.

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This is my field of beans this year....my first year of actually renting something.

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They ended up doing really well. I'm pretty happy with how it worked out.
This is awesome man. I'd give bout anything just to have an 80 or somethin of what i grew up on.
 
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GTPpower

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Hell yeah! Everyone up our way is damn near done with beans. How’s your yield looking?

These did 72, which are the best beans we've ever had. But, we have about 70 acres left of irrigated beans to cut, and those should destroy these. But they are a little green yet. We tried them a few days ago and it didn't work.
 

Outlaw

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Dryland avg around here I’d be surprised to see 46-50 this year with the drought we saw.

Speaking of the “good life” of farming. I just had to waste a $3 Hornaday Critical Defense on a fuckin’ possum that got in the hen house about 15 min ago. They started making a racket and my CCW was the closest gun to me lol.
 

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