Life on the Farm

[bjrogg]

Worked at unloading trucks and got them all empty by 10:00 pm

The bunker is almost full . Might put another load in. Will decide that this morning.

Was a good weekend. Would have loved to take my bow out hunting, but I’m really glad to get my son’s bunker full. I didn’t want his corn out until we finished beets. This will definitely take some of the pressure off.

Bjrogg

[Buckskinner]

We call them trench silos, my dad had 2 of them.  One filled with corn silage and the other high moisture that would feed about 250 head of feeder cattle all year long.  The corn silage trench silo was huge, probably +150 yards long, 40 yards wide and 15 feet deep, it took hundreds of truck loads to fill. 

Brings back lots of memories... The funnest job was to push the loads down the hill with a loader tractor, got a little hairy once in a while, silage is awfully soft when not compacted.  Also remember me popping a brake line as I was backing up to the edge to dump, thankfully the silo was not empty and I just went over the edge and got hung up and stuck. Could have been a bad ride...

[bjrogg]

Last load of corn for the bunker. Only about 20 acres of my sons corn left and about 10 acres for my neighbor. It’s all to wet to take to town yet so it will probably have to wait till sugar beet harvest is done. Time to clean out the corners of the cart and get it ready for sugar beets again.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

This is the view from top of the pile looking down at the roller mill.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The last of the corn going through the roller mill. The mill has two groved rollers that run very close to each other. The corn passes between these rolls and is cracked. The cracked corn is more easily digestible for the cattle and it also makes it so we can pack it and drive on it without just getting stuck on the pile.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The high moisture corn goes through a fermentation process and becomes what we call insiled. It will keep for years like this as long as it isn’t exposed to air. We pack it to get the air out and then we cover the top with plastic and hold the plastic down with lime. Just a few year ago we had a bunch of chiefs and not very many Indians for this job. Now most of the chiefs have gone to the happy hunting grounds. My daughter in law recruited a bunch of  4-H and FFA members to help. Now it looks like we have a whole tribe.

Sure made the job easier

Hope they come back next year to

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Here’s a couple pictures of our Old KW for Pappy and Bob

This is what I consider her good side although she looks pretty good from any angle.

Just kinda like that air cleaner stack sticking out the side.lol some engineer probably got scolded for forgetting about where the air cleaner was going and put it there as a afterthought.

Bjrogg

[chamookman]

I like it ! Been a long time since I ran thru the Gears in one, don't miss the Diesel Fumes tho. Docs said they added to My COPD. Great lookin' Truck - Bob.

[bjrogg]

We got a call yesterday afternoon telling us that beet harvest is not allowed to start until 5:00am Thursday morning.

Yesterday I spread rye seed for cover crop on about 80 acres.

Then I had a couple hours before dark. It was a pretty nice day so I headed to my tree stand in my fence row. Saw several deer but nothing close enough to shoot. Probably not even close enough to see on the pictures I took.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Today is windy and drizzling rain. Did a few things in town. Was really hoping that Diesel prices would come down some by now. Man we are spending a large fortune every day right now and it’s going to be even worse when we start sugar beet harvest

Bjrogg

PS I’m still burning E-85. I have over 170,000 miles on my truck and have only burned a couple tanks full of regular gas. I have had zero problems with the E-85

[bjrogg]

Think we have everything ready for beets todayZ hopefully finish the neighbors and start ours.

All the trucks are serviced. Tractors and carts ready. Digger and topper ready. Rye spreader refilled and tractor on the chisel plow to do tillage behind us. Hopefully we can find enough warm bodies to fill the seats and the weather to allow them to stay in them.

I put in a little overtime last night and worked on this Red Osier shaft. It’s been curing on a old broom handle for several years.

If everything goes as I’m hoping. This could be a very special arrow. I have a point I knapped from a stone I found on my farm. The Red Osier was harvested from my farm. I have a HHB bow I made from a tree on my farm. If it works out I’d like to make a string of natural materials gathered from my farm.

Then harvest a nice buck with it .

Man’s gotta have a dream. Seems like a worthy one

Bjrogg

[M2A]

Wishing you a good harvest BJ.
All done here. been waiting on some parts that came today then I can get some herbicide down and some urea sprayed on the trees so I can get that stuff winterized. Got a GAP inspection with the USDA inspecters next week so I hope after that things will slow down.     
Looking forward to see that arrow all finished up.
Mike

[bjrogg]

Thanks Mike. Glade you have your harvest completed. Hope your inspection goes well. I have really enjoyed your contributions to this thread. I always enjoy learning more about different types of farming just like I do with different types of bows.

Yesterday morning we started digging sugar beets again
 
First off we sent two carts and 3 trucks over to help our neighbor finish his 20 acres.

While they were digging those my youngest son and I moved beet digger, topper, fuel cart, JCB loader, tool truck, pickup, tractor and cart and one truck to the field we want to start our beets in.

It’s the furthest haul. Almost a 40 mile round trip for the trucks. We want to get this field if we can while we still have help. My neighbors 93 year old dad has suddenly took a turn and was put on hospice. We could lose half our truck drivers at almost anytime. Hope he pops back. He has been doing good up until now. He’s a very nice man

The sunrise was a broken cloudy one but it was pretty mixed with the fall colors.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

I was hoping it would only take about 3 or four hours to finish our neighbors field but it was more like seven.

When they finished the whole crew came to our field and we started digging about 2:00 pm. Things went pretty good for the most part. Conditions were still a little challenging but workable.

We had a few bugs to get out of the new (old) digger. The biggest problem was that the digger wheels slid very easily. They have grouser pads on the spooks of the wheels that help keep the wheels turning. 

The new digger wheels we just put on were made for a narrow row spacing digger. They had very small pads and with the soil conditions the combination was allowing the wheels to slide instead of keep turning. Whenever the wheels slide the beets don’t go into the digger and are lost. This means I have to look backwards the entire time constantly watching the wheels. When one stops turning I have to stop, raise digger, back up and carefully lower digger until wheels turn backwards and clear again. This is very time consuming and extremely tiring for me the operator.

This morning we are going to take the old digger wheels with us. If conditions don’t improve we will take off the new wheels and put on the old. In these conditions old almost worn out wheels work best.

We did manage to get 21.37acres off and a lot of the bugs out. Hopefully today is a big day.

21.37 acres down 328 to go.

The beets actually were pretty good. I did one yield check and it was 32.19 tons per acre. For the weather we have had I’m very happy with that. Especially if the sugar content is good

Bjrogg

Just a few pictures. Really could take my eyes off digger for long enough to take many good ones.

[bjrogg]

Pictures