Harvest Heaven

This Is Iowa

The corn bin is getting full. That’s a good sign. By the time I get the six wagons empty I will have it full. I think it’s yielding better than it did two years ago when it was last corn. Maybe not dollar wise but bushel wise. I don’t know when I’ll get the wagons empty because the lower end bearing on the grain auger went out. As I was emptying the wagons last evening I heard the chain jump on the sprockets that drive the swing hopper. If I didn’t replace it now so I can re tighten the chain properly I’ll be buying a new chain and a new pair of sprockets. They are expensive so a stitch in time saves nine in this scenario. I’ve finished the terraces and all the contour rows coming down the hill below the terraces and all I have left is the strait rows that follow the creek pasture’s fence. Three quarter mile long strait and level rows. Harvest heaven.

But first I’ll need to look after the cattle. They’ve finished the hay bales along with the bean field gleanings on the fifteen acres I turned them out on the other day. I have a hot wire to reroute down across the creek so they can have that thirty five acres of bean gleanings without drinking at the crossing like they have for the past four years. I don’t like what they do to the crossing so I’ve been keeping them off of it this year. Thank God too after all this year’s rain, there wouldn’t be much crossing left had they been hammering it all this year like the last couple. The girls are really starting to pretty up with their winter coats coming on. After a run through the fields those bodies will be filled out to match. Then it’s off to the sale barn. Oh, they know. I’ve told them. The last time they got out.

Cc

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Oh The Joy

Really Done

I hauled the last seventy bushels of beans to town to dump in the elevator today. The semi truck was full so we had to pull them to town in the gravity wagon behind the Dodge pickup. It worked pretty well. I’m started on corn here at home. I have the top terrace combined and close to half the next terrace down the hill. Things keep breaking. I suffered through four breakdowns already. Or was that five?

In the morning I’ll have to disassemble the corn head drive shaft and go have a new one made. It’s a inch and an eighth thick hex shaft that has to have threads cut on one end. I’ll need a new bearing and bearing holders along with a couple sprockets and heavy roller chain also. I’ve already fixed the head’s auger’s drive chain. And a gathering chain sprocket. The unloading cross auger’s chain. The head/feeder house drive belt tightener. The rattle chain in the feeder house needed tightened …….

Cc

Tracks

We have a list of things we want to do
It seems the mist of morning’s breaking through
What is the best we put attention to
To make the rest of our intention’s true

Critical path is forming in my brain
Soon we will have to toot this chew chew train
Finished the math the answer’s still not plain
Charting the graph with every fact we gain

First step’s the hardest only till it’s done
The steps pass by faster then one by one
It appears smartest thing’s to be begun
We will pass the test when under the gun

Done

We loaded the last semi load of beans for the crush plant last evening just as it was getting dark. The load was going in today sometime. We cracked open a twelve pack and drank us up a storm. By midnight the rain was over. We received a good soaking. I’d say up to an inch fell. The perfect ending for the bean run. By noon today it had cleared back off and the sun was shining bright. I took a nap this afternoon after I had moved the cows out on the last patch of now fresh bean stubble. While they took their first few mouthfuls I ran down witrh a few buckets and cleaned up the beans we’d spilled on the road loading trucks. A trap wasn’t quite closed once on the rear hopper and a few beans dribbled out onto the gravel. Another time the truck pulled too far forward as he switched to the rear hopper and some ran over the back onto the same pile.

We finished before the rain but about five hours before it started I never thought I was going to make it. As I was cutting beans around two or three in the afternoon the cutter bar suddenly stopped. When I got off to see if the drive belt had broke I discovered the wobble box that drives the sickle had all but fallen clean off. The four bolts that held it in place were still all there but the two front ones had been the only ones holding it on since the piece of plate steel that the rear two bolts were bolted to had broken off with the piece still firmly attached to the wobble box to no avail. Those two front bolts had shaken half off and allowed the box to move rearward enough to slacken the drive belt stopping the sickle from traveling back and forth.

So I needed two new bolts with lock nuts and a welder. That meant running up to get my borrowed welder back from the guy that borrowed it. I sent the stay at gone mom after the bolts over to the Titan IH machinery dealer a couple towns over. She had just enough time before having to go pick up the kids from school. By Five I had it back together and was out finishing the last couple acres. I called the trucker and the rest you know.

Now, for the corn …….

Cc

Field Four

Last field. The fifteen acres alongside the lane and road are about half combined. When I stopped at sundown last night I had everything except the two Stanhoist barge boxes and the anti gravity wagon full of beans. Including the 1440. After a miscommunication the truck wasn’t called to haul away a load yesterday. Fortunately the seven or so acres I have left will fit on the two Stanhoist  wagons leaving the bigger anti gravity wagon to use when I switch over to combine corn. Just in case we continue to miscommunicate with the trucker and the beans sit on wagons for a while. I like leaving my options open.

Yesterday morning while the dew burnt off I moved the hot wire re bar posts over alongside the beans by the fence across the creek so I wouldn’t hit them when I cut the outside Round. I saved the outside to finish filling hoppers that were too full for another round but not quite full yet. I would whittle away at that outside round a little at a time filling those nearly full hoppers on my way back to the wagons I dump the combine on. Then I loaded some old cement and rocks to throw onto the creek crossing. I was able to drive down through the crossing my grandad put in back in the fifties.

Well I’m fresh back from loading another semi load to go to the crush plant. The trucker called as I was writing that last paragraph. It’s twenty after ten on a dry, dew free morning. There’s a breeze picking up out of the east and that can mean rain. I better go hit it one more time. With any luck the next post will be to brag about getting done with the beans. Make hay when the sun shines they say. That reminds me I have fifty five acres of pasture/grass hay that needs to be hauled in from the field where my older brother custom baled it. That should be done before the snow flies. It will be one of those filler jobs when the opportunities present themselves.

Gotta go …….

Cc