2006-10-31
This bridge is narrow for a 8 row corn head, but it does fit.
2006-10-30
2006-10-29
I took one machine back up north to top off a drying bin and finish a field. As of right now, we pretty much need to dry everything else left standing, since it is running about 18 to 19% moisture.
2006-10-28
Tonight, the sky was stunning.
2006-10-26
Rain again today. The fields are going to be a mess when we get back out there. One combine had a "sore foot". The bearing cover fell off somehow and got a little dirt into the bearing. We pulled the wheel today, cleaned it up, repacked the bearing, and put on a new bearing cover.
2006-10-25
2006-10-24
We've been hauling grain straight from the field to ADM for delivery. Even with the pencil shrink and dock for being a bit too wet, it is still cheaper than the cost of drying and handling. However, ADM had something broken today on their rail dump (which they also dump trucks at) so it took longer to get the trucks through the line. We still managed to keep the combine moving pretty much all day though.
2006-10-23
What did I accomplish today? Hmm. Oh yeah, that's right, more corn.
2006-10-22
I cut about 25 acres, and the other machine would have done about the same. We didn't get started too early, but hey, for a Sunday afternoon, it isn't too bad.
2006-10-21
Rain today. We finished up corn over by Norway last night, which is good since we won't have to drive back over there. Both combines got looked over in the shop today. It was a maintenance day.
2006-10-20
2006-10-19
2006-10-18
We cut maybe 1000 bushels of corn yesterday, and another 1000 today. We seem to get rained out shortly after we get started. Tom (with the "Harvest in Europe" pages) is in town, so we toured Kinze Manufacturing, a local ethanol plant, and talked about differences in agriculture between the US and Europe.
2006-10-15
Ah, we finished off the soybeans today. Both combines have the corn heads on them again. The flex heads got cleaned off and put in the shed for the year. Rain is in the forecast, so we are glad to have the soybeans done. There are still a lot of acres of soybeans still out there though, in this area.
2006-10-14
Back to soybeans today with both combines. We want to get them done before the next storm system moves in. We blew the rotor belt of the older machine today, and the crop wasn't even tough. The belt was just old and cracked, and pretty much gave up like an old rubber band. Tonight we had to quit shortly after dark. We simply couldn't see where we were going because of very thick dust and no wind. I couldn't see the end of the header several times, and had a very hard time finding where the edge of the uncut soybeans were at.
2006-10-13
We ground out about 50 acres of corn today. Still working on the down corn, but we should be past the bad stuff now. Everything we did today had to be done one direction only, which really makes it inefficient. On the plus side, the corn is all around 17% moisture, so it doesn't have to be dried down much. For those of you who aren't familiar with corn, we want it at 15% or less moisture to store it without spoilage.
2006-10-10
Today we put both machine back into corn. I took one to work on our worst down corn, which proved to be an all-day headache. Cutting with just 7 rows of the 8 row corn head, no reel or cones on the header. I averaged about 4 acres per hour. Of course the light rain wasn't helping, and it eventually got tough enough that I couldn't make the thing feed right, nor did the rotor like all that trash anymore. There is just a lot of material going through the machine.
2006-10-9
More beans today. We again caught up to the green beans, which we are now referring to as "Christmas beans" since they are green so late in the season. Many other farmers around here have also quit cutting soybeans just because they are too dry. Ours are 8-9 % moisture, and the local elevator has seen some samples at 7 %. Obviously the sickle shatter is ridiculous. Now that I think about it, we haven't seen rain in probably 3 weeks. (FYI, there is now a piece of soybean dust inside my camera. It shows up as the curvy line in all the pictures.)
| YouTube Video Green stem and leaning soybeans |
2006-10-8
| YouTube Video Soybeans and dust |
2006-10-7
2006-10-6
2006-10-5
We've been busy grinding down field after field of soybeans. We've had unusually warm weather with high humidity. This is causing the dew to set in early at night, often within an hour of sunset. We haven't had a good frost yet either, so the green stems and weeds thresh hard. I don't think we broke anything major today, just 4 sickle sections and a guard. However, we did replace the hydraulic cylinder that engages the feeder reverser on one combine because it slowly seeps oil while the engine it running.
We took both semis into Cargill last night to deliver some soybeans. By this morning, all three of their staging lots were full and there were trucks backed up onto Interstate in line waiting to unload. The DOT and local cops were all over it. Apparently everybody and their brother is cutting soybeans this week.
2006-10-3
We had a bearing go out late this evening on one combine. Back to the dealer first thing tomorrow morning for more parts. Otherwise, we had a great day. We found a field of soybeans that didn't have green stems, and they really cut nice.
2006-10-2
2006-10-1
One machine lost the bearing for the engine fan. It ground up the shroud for a while before it stopped spinning, which caused the belt to start smoking. Good thing we could smell that, since it was shooting sparks all over inside the engine compartment. Fortunately, each of our combines has a water fire extinguisher, which we needed to put out the smoldering fires. Crap, that was close.
