See the Poop Fly

Oh, its so nice to have relatively warmer weather. Temperatures are in the 30's and 40's now and I certainly will not complain about that, considering that we had subzero readings only a few weeks ago.

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This morning there were a handful of letters to mail, including a birthday card in a pink envelope to my daughter-in-law, whose birthday is on Valentine's Day. Cool, eh!

Hark, over yonder......what's that sound? And......that smell??
Ah, yes......its Husband taking advantage of still-frozen fields to haul cow manure which has piled up in the barnyard over the winter. If you're a livestock farmer, that's what you're busy at right now.......hurriedly flinging poop before the fields get too soft to drive on.
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Look, Jane, look.
See poop fly!

You have to fill the manure spreader somehow. Pitchforks would take forever and you'd be exhausted long before the job was done. Husband used the Bobcat this morning.


Enjoy this lovely scene.....pleasantly odorless to you blog readers. Its a pile of straw and manure mixed together, steaming and steeping in the morning sunshine. The beauty is that it makes great fertilizer!

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That's what's happening on the farm today, in case you wanted to know. If you didn't want to know, well......too bad......surf away quickly.

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Brake for a Break

New transportation for Santa this year! The reindeer must have gone on strike to a warm beach somewhere. Come Christmas Eve, you will need to listen for Johnny-Popper putta-putta-pop-pop's instead of sleigh bells!! (It appears some inflation will be needed before then, too!) Would you believe this photo was taken way back on November 13.......in Oelwein, Iowa, in front of Hub City Implement Company. Can you guess what brand of farm machinery they sell and service there?

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I'm putting the BRAKE on blogging for awhile......taking a BREAK......maybe for a week or so, to try and get my act together for Christmas.

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I hope to read some blogs now and then, but will not be posting here on my own site. Yeah, I know.......big hairy deal......boo-hoo, and all that.

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Best wishes to you in YOUR holiday preparations!!

God Bless!

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Steamy on the Farm

If you think things can't get steamy on a dairy farm.......you have another guess coming! In winter........fresh cowpies produce steam, and so do other happenings. Do you have any idea what you're looking at here?

That's a steamin' wagon-load of hot soybeans! The soybean roaster was here yesterday morning. I enjoy the billowing steam, the deep rumbly sound of the roasting machine at work, and the aroma of the beans being cooked. You can see the roaster's fuel source, an LP tank hauled right on the truck.....shown in the next photo:

You've probably been wishing desperately to see a grain roaster up close........well, here you go. It can also roast corn and other types of grain.

The roasted soybeans are a source of protein, to be put into feed for our cows. If you were here, you could snack on a handful of the cooked beans, too.
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Oh, I'm so easily led off on tangents. Yesterday, Blogger "rhymeswithplague" posted a link to a choir singing on YouTube, and from there I allowed myself to get sucked into a sea of myriad other videos there on YouTube. Goodness.......a person could get lost for a whole day......perhaps even drown! I even found videos of farm place near here hit by the tornado last May. Simply search "Dunkerton" on YouTube and you'll find them; they are the Magee farm videos. (I didn't even add "Iowa" to "Dunkerton" because I'm pretty sure there's only one place by that that name in the U.S. and perhaps in the entire world.) Dennis Magee is regional editor at the Waterloo Courier newspaper and he was at work in Waterloo when word came that a tornado had just hit Parkersburg; he and a photographer headed out to chase down storm stories and photos. They ended up in a harrowing situation on Highway 218 north of Cedar Falls just as the tornado was bearing down on that busy 4-lane thoroughfare! Suddenly they saw car lights coming towards them in their lane......the cops had to turn all the traffic around to get away from the tornado! Dennis didn't know it, but the tornado was then headed towards his farm home north of Dunkerton---about 15 miles from where he was. He wouldn't have needed to bother going off chasing the storm; he could have simply gone home for a gripping story and sensational photos! That tornado stayed on the ground for close to 40 miles! The whirling monster was moving along within a huge, dark box-like mass of clouds and dirt.......we watched---and heard---it go by 1-1/2 miles south of our farm. Thirty minutes before that I had started to take a walk out on the road, but quickly changed my mind......a dark cloud bank was visible in the west, but what really creeped me out was the continuous low, deep rumbling sound......like constant thunder way in the distance. It was way too unusual.

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Yeah......I'm really random......now we'll jump to my son: He attended Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, a few years ago and sang in the "Ritterchor" there, so I searched YouTube yesterday for a video of that mens' choir. No, there was not one, but there were a couple short videos of the larger Wartburg Choir visiting Wartburg Castle in Germany........one of Martin Luther's haunts. The Wartburg Choir takes a tour over there every other year. A view of the castle grounds is here.........and here is the Wartburg Choir singing inside the Wartburg Castle, videotaped by one of the singers right there in the choir loft, evidently......the sound quality is not very good, but its interesting to see a bit of the inside of the castle. I found it interesting and that's why I'm bothering telling you so!!

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Post-Harvest Fieldwork

Yesterday morning, the sound of a howling northwest wind greeted my ears, making it very difficult to emerge from under the warm blankets. Well---I thought---if I can survive feeding calves this morning, then I'll come back into the cozy house and continue working on several de-cluttering and rearranging projects I've haphazardly given birth to the past few days. I'm simply trying to MAKE ROOM FOR CHRISTMAS to happen.......the tree, the decorations.......those things that are expected to appear at will. Does anyone understand this?! And, let's not forget Thanksgiving......which is probably my favorite holiday, but it gets lost in the shuffle.

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However.......when I got to the barn, Husband announced that he was planning to have me run the chisel plow after morning chores. Whew.......what a relief......that meant I could ditch those silly, frivolous cleaning and organizing plans for the house!

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Anyhow, this chisel-plowing task provides a good excuse to post about the fieldwork that takes place after the harvesting is finished. Once the grain crops are gathered in, then---weather permitting---farmers turn to the job of tillage, after first hauling manure on the fields if they have livestock.

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Here is one example of field tillage equipment.......a field cultivator........seen on the road several days ago:

And, next......here is our neighbor.......in his shiny, newish John Deere tractor........pulling a chisel plow, so named for the chisel-shaped tines which dig into the soil. There is a row of disk blades in front of the chisels, to better break up the dirt clods.

By the way, another neighbor---who farms many hundreds of acres---is still busy at combining corn. You can see his red International Harvestor combine in the photo below. He dumps the corn into gravity box wagons, which are hauled back to his farm and emptied into a grain dryer and then into a storage bin. The other day I had posted about another neighbor who uses semi-trucks to haul grain from his fields.


OK......now onto my own mission for the day.......to till a field which had grown soybeans this year, and which has recently been plastered with cow manure. Next you see our dinky chisel plow, ready and waiting to work that manure into the soil, in hopeful anticipation of the next growing season.



The plow is being pulled by an Allis-Chalmers 8785 tractor, with a loader attached on the front. How very nice. Husband emphatically emphasized, "Watch out so you don't hit the electric poles with the loader!", before he turned me loose in the field. The next photo shows the view facing forward from the tractor cab. Yup, by golly, there is one of those pesky power poles coming up ahead. I must negotiate my U-turn very carefully! What do you think that brown stuff is on the ground.......if you say "dirt", you're incorrect.......it is the wonder-working MANURE!

I'm driving in luxurious comfort today.......this cab actually has a heater.......and a radio!! And, a clock, which is of absolutely no interest to me today.
To the right of the cab's air-shocked, springy seat are the hydraulic levers. The one with the green dot on the handle is the only one I'm using today.......pulling the lever back raises the chisel plow out of the ground and pushing it forward drops the plow back down. These features must be utilized during each U-turn at the ends of the field.

The plow cannot be left in the ground when you turn around. Think about it. Soil is a tough medium to pull anything through. Try it. You would probably wreck equipment if you left the plow in the ground during a turn. I've never tried it, and don't plan to. Husband would have my head.......
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This next photo shows the plow raised up during a turn. It usually takes me a few turns to get comfortably into the routine........pull hydraulic lever back; turn steering wheel sharply, being sure to avoid hitting the fence; press foot on left or right brake, depending on which way your turn is going---you want to brake the rear wheel on the side you are turning to---otherwise you'll go sliding out of control and end up somewhere you don't want to be, and in danger of receiving a serious lecture from the boss! (Ya might even get fired!) Then, once the turn is complete, I press the other side's brake to straighten the tractor in the field, while at the same time pushing the hydraulic lever forward to drop the plow into the ground again. Ya got all that? The tractor is barreling along all the while you're doing all this, so you better know ahead of time what your turning plan is! Be prepared! Planning in advance is the secret to success!
In the next photo, you see the view through the rear window of the tractor. As I sat there, bouncing along.......many, many thoughts wandered in and out of my mind. Life is like plowing, but without a hydraulic system to use......you set your plow into the ground---your row to hoe in life---and away you go, presumably always in a straight line, because should you ever come to a point where you think you want to make an about-face and go the opposite direction.....well, you would do so at great peril, for recall that you can't raise your plow out of the ground......due to having no hydraulics. I truly view life that way right now.
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In my mind, thoughts of acquaintances, friends and family, living and passed on, came and went, often prompted by whatever song was playing on the radio. The songs and my thoughts seemed so entwined, I felt like contacting the radio station to see if they were employing mindreaders! Don't be alarmed.....that's just my normal paranoia kicking in.*
I've mentioned that the field had been recently covered with a fresh coat of cow manure.......fertilizer for next spring's crop. This final photo shows Husband pulling the filled-to-the-brim manure spreader a few days ago. Fill it to the rim with ___! You betcha!

Hey.......here's a great attitude adjuster!! Find a place where you can be alone, away from prying ears.......and then shout out, "COW POOP ROCKS"!! Or, just say "COW POOP" out loud over and over several times. It really works......you'll start to smile and your mood will brighten. Think of how kids giggle over the word POOP. I'm not kidding! Try it!

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Leaves Blue & Swept

The other day the wind blew and blew and this blue leaf blew, too, and got caught on this tree branch. (This photo is for those who are tired of seeing autumn colors.......don't try to hide; I know you're out there!)

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Today is so typical of November, I can hardly stand it. Drabness permeates the atmosphere......a gray sky is parked overhead and mud globs fill the driveways around the farmyard. Husband is overwhelmed with equipment breakdowns; if it isn't the silo unloader that screeches to a halt, its a cow drinking cup knocked awry by a clumsy cow's head.

Between each two cows in the barn is one of these bowls shown below, for the cows to drink water from. With her muzzle, a cow presses the lever down inside the bowl which allows water to flow in so she can slurp it up. If you think cows are considerate beings who treat equipment with gentleness and care, well, you have another guess coming! Cows have big, heavy heads and necks which they throw every which way, at their discretion. That means trouble for whatever or whoever is in the path of the cow's swinging head. Take my advice.......watch out, or better yet, stay away!

While Husband grumpily worked on fixing drinking cups after milking this morning, I finished scraping the barn alleyways and wandered into the dreary outdoors to figure out what to do next. The morning was very still and I realized it would be the perfect time to sweep the garage. Lots of leaves had blown in there, and, of course, more will blow in in the weeks ahead, along with debris from the cornfields. It never pays to do too much raking or yard clean-up around this farm, for new batches of crap keep blowing in. Who cares, really? We live way out in the middle of nowhere, and no one of any consequence sees our yard, anyway.......just the milk truck driver, an occasional bull semen salesman, the dairy supply guy, the neighbor (whose yard looks similar to ours), and us, of course. There's no need to keep up appearances for the sake of the neighborhood around here! Everyone understands, and no one gives a hoot if your yard is messy at times!

Ok, so the sweeping went well......like I said, there was no wind for me to fight against. Cats.....now that's another story. They presumptuously assumed I was raking the leaves into a comfortable pile for them to lounge on. Harrumph......no way, kitty.......SCRAM!

Finally, the job is done. As I said earlier.....its inevitable that more leaves will come swirling in, but for today, the garage floor is clear. By the way, I love my Rubbermaid cart; its very handy for tasks like this. We have two of these carts; Husband uses one in the barn to move silage around. The first cart was acquired for me to use around the yard, but it didn't take long before Husband had confiscated it for barn use. That was no fair at all! Before long, he agreed we could buy another one.

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Are things drab and broken down where you are??
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AC-190 Cozy Cab

By golly, have I any right to complain about driving a tractor which boasts "Cozy Cab" signage! No, sirree!

Yesterday, I used this tractor to retrieve cornstalk bales from the field. Next is the view from inside the luxurious "COZY CAB". If you click to enlarge the picture, you might be able to spot our two dogs who tagged along all day, back and forth, from field to farmstead. They just love that, for some reason!

On each side of the cab is a door with plexi-glas windows, adorned with lots of dirt, dust, and unique cracked artwork:

Heater?......Nope. Air-conditioning?........Yup. That's provided for sure........see the gap between door and frame. The drafts are not a problem, though, if you bundle up good.......in insulated coveralls, coat, scarf, and thick gloves.

The gauge shows we're running at "15"........that's not miles-per-hour, though.......its RPM's: revolutions-per-minute......in hundreds, in this case. Thus, we're running at 1500 RPM's. (Like I know alot about what that means. I presume it means the engine is producing 1500 revolutions of something every minute.)

Well.......that's it. Just had to treat you to some shots of the fancy cab. Oh, and here's some trivia about this old tractor: As stated earlier, it is an AllisChalmers 190.......purchased NEW by Husband's dad around 40 years ago---one of only two tractors he bought new. In comparison, Husband has always purchased used tractors, which is no big deal, simply a fact. Anyhow, this old AC-190 holds much sentimental value in Husband's family of six brothers; they all have memories of using this tractor when they were young, and for that reason, Husband will never sell it, I'm quite sure. Tractors can become like one of the family!

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Baling Cornstalks

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Today we're making cornstalk bales. Here's the recipe:

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Chop 'em.....

Rake 'em......
Gather 'em in a baler......

 Expel 'em in tight, wrapped rolls......
Bring 'em in from the field.......

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That's all there is to it. During the upcoming long, cold months of winter, these cornstalk bales will provide dry, comfortable bedding for the cattle.

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Corn Harvesting

This big contraption invaded our cornfield yesterday; possibly it is some sort of political machine chewing its way across the landscape.

Nah! Of course, you know its a corn harvesting machine known as a combine. I believe the name derives from the fact that the processes of picking and shelling corn are combined in one machine. When I was a kid, farmers still used corn-pickers, which harvested the corn on the ear. The ears would be stored in a corncrib, to dry out and later be ground up or shelled for feed.
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We hire another farmer to combine our corn. Recall that much of our corn was already chopped and put in the silo several weeks ago. Now, whatever was left is being harvested as shelled corn. In this next photo, the combine gets ready to dump its load of shelled corn into the green grain cart.
The grain cart----which also belongs to the guy who owns the combine----dumps its load into the red gravity box wagon. From there, in this photo, the corn kernels are being blown into our blue Harvestore silo which is made to hold high-moisture shelled corn for the cows to eat. This silo is like a great-big canning jar.

It was my responsibility to monitor the grain flowing from the red wagon into the silo blower. Here we're looking through the little hatch window on the side of the red wagon to watch the corn dump from the grain cart's auger.

My job included turning this wheel to raise(open) and lower(close) the gravity box wagon's door.

After the Harvestore silo was full, we moved the wagons and started augering corn into a metal bin. In this picture, the corn flows into auger's very handy hopper.

Nowadays, farm equipment comes equipped with many safety features like the shield and grid you see in the hopper. The shield covers the spinning auger blade.
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Nevertheless, the chance for injury always exists, especially if you are careless and not paying attention. NEED WE SAY MORE?......these warning decals seem to be saying:

Obviously, you would NEVER want to stick your hand or any other body part into an auger!! I know of many guys who lost fingers or parts of hands or feet in augers. People get in a hurry and get careless. Like I said earlier, though......the safety shields and such are much better now than they used to be.

Sadly, every now and then, a farmer will get electrocuted while moving an auger.......if the auger comes in contact with overhead power lines. The auger must be lowered way down for safe moving. A few years ago, in a neighboring county, a father and son BOTH died one autumn day while moving an auger. Oh, my.

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Well, the combine is on its last round. Another corn harvest wrapped up successfully!

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Next up on the farm docket........chopping cornstalks and baling them to be used as livestock bedding through the winter. I wouldn't be surprised if Husband asked me to chop stalks sometime soon.

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Hey........I also had a pleasant time yesterday on my drive to and from picking up the baler netwrap. Lots to show and tell you eventually. Here's a hint about the historical site I visited: A well-known Confederate figure spent time there in the 1840's.

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Oh.....and, Happy Friday the Halloween Day! Here's a link to some

historical Halloween info......always fascinating. We don't get any trick-or-treaters coming around out here on the farm.......except for possibly a young niece or nephew once in a while. I'm hoping to carve a pumpkin today; I just love watching a real, flickering, glowing jack-o-lantern face on Halloween night! I rolled a log over to the fire spot in our yard and hope to start it burning for s'mores later on.

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Soybeans Harvested

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Hey.......have you ever climbed a mountain of soybeans?

Me neither.......it would be next to impossible, that's for certain, as round and slippery as soybeans are! I stood on the wagon's ladder to take this photo:

Our miniscule 15-acre soybean field was harvested on Thursday. Above, feast your eyes upon our modern, up-to-date gravity-box wagon, adorned with the latest in rust art designs!

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Below........see our neighbor's BIG Gleaner combine----noisily, dustily chewing its way through the bean field, finishing in less than two hours.

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Poor, old, hard-working Husband gets a few moments of well-deserved sit-down time as he watches the beans flow into the hopper to be conveyed through an auger into the storage bin. The combine's meter showed the average yield to be 51 to 56 bushels per acre. Husband was pleased with that.

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In case you're wondering what the cornfields look like right now in this part of Iowa.......here you go:

I've been admiring the rosy to fuchsia coloring on the cornstalks this year; the corn silks were rosy-colored earlier in the summer, too. I don't know what the reason for the unusual coloring is.......perhaps its a characteristic of the the corn variety, or more likely its due to the adverse weather early in the season. It was said that the heavy rains late last spring washed away much of the nitrogen in the soil before the corn had a chance to use it. I did notice that the green color in the cornfields this year was not as deep and dark as usual.......a lack of nitrogen would cause that, I think. Oddly, enough........many weeds have rosy-colored stalks this year, too!

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Have a great Saturday!

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New Spreader & Debate

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Spread the news! A sight of extreme rarity exists on our farmstead right now........but, not for long, I'm afraid:

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What you're gazing upon right here is an immaculate, brand- spankin'-new Kuhn-Knight Slinger manure spreader........straight from the factory in Brodhead, Wisconsin. Husband had placed the order back in June, and it took this long to arrive! Needless to say, Husband was getting very impatient. Why anyone is impatient to spend thousands of dollars is beyond me, but, that's how it goes. List price was over $29,000; we received a trade-in allowance of $11,300. (Who would want a USED manure spreader, you may ask?!.........A farmer with lots of poop and not much money, of course!)
These photos need to be cherished for posterity, for in another hour or two, the first scoop of manure will be slopped into this spreader, and that will be the end of shiny-clean for this machine......forever!!

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On one side of the spreader is this opening with paddles inside which will rotate and shoot the manure out over the field. Old-time manure spreaders had a rotating apparatus at the back of the machine which dispersed the matter. In the newspaper just the other day was the sad report of a farmer in western Iowa who had been killed by the rear rotating parts of a manure spreader! My husband shook his head and said......"What a way to go."

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I feel like commenting on the vice-presidential debate of last evening, and don't worry, its simply a random coincidence that those comments will be contained in the same post as manure spreader photos. Ahem.

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I watched most of the debate......or, rather.......I LISTENED to most of the debate. For some reason, I have never cared for SEEING the candidates during the debates.........I get distracted by their gestures, expressions, etc. I did glance up a few times last night and did notice the way Sarah Palin stared right at the camera........right at us Americans in TV-Land. Probably, that was a smart move on her part.......eye-contact facilitates bonding.

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I don't know that much about politics and issues, but I tried to listen carefully to the questions and answers. I did feel Sarah Palin skirted around several questions, simply saying, "Americans want change." Its a catchy slogan........people latch onto catchy slogans, which help them decide who to vote for in the end. Probably, Joe Biden mentioned a catchy slogan, too. They all do.

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I honestly don't know yet who I will vote for. I refuse to buy into this or that party-line about either of the tickets. Liberals will try to say that Sarah Palin is the most awful thing to come along, and conservatives will say she is the best. I don't hold to either view. She's no example of perfect motherhood, nor is she a backwoods idiot. Her path in life led her to where she is. Make no mistake, she was noticed by Republican bigwigs several years ago, just as, I'm sure, Barack Obama was noticed by Democratic higher-ups early on.

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Our sports-saturated culture is enamored with winning, and recruiting the best players to make that happen. Its the same in politics, I believe.

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I want to not be distracted by the personal side of the candidates. I don't wish to hear anymore about John McCain happening to have been a POW, or Barack Obama happening to have been fathered by a Muslim, or Joe Biden happening to have tragically lost his wife and child in a car accident years ago, or Sarah Palin happening to be a breast-feeding mother. Those kinds of things have nothing to do with being president or vice-president, and I will not listen to anyone who tries to promote or bash candidates on the basis of those personal matters.

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I think my favorite part of the debate broadcast last evening was afterwards when the Biden and Palin families were mingling on the stage.........smiling, shaking hands, interacting. Right then I was thankful again to live in a country where debates can be held openly and peacefully. And, frankly, that's what the world needs........peaceful dialogue and interacting amongst human beings. I have to believe people are basically the same across the globe.........caring about their families. Even the bad eggs most likely have a loving family in their background somewhere.

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Sarah Palin kept mentioning "tolerance" and "freedom".........that we need to continue those traditions into the future, for the sake of our children. I hope she really means that, and I would hope that is the goal of both sides in this election.

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I truly hate to bring up abortion, but am going to. I, thankfully, have never been in a situation where I wished to have an abortion. I do believe that as long as there are humans in existence, there will be abortions happening. Pregnancies are not always wanted, or safe, and, naturally, women bear the brunt of consequenses from having sex. If abortions are made illegal again........they will move underground again. Abstinence is a lofty-minded, but unrealistic pathway. It will never happen in every case, everywhere, humans being humans. What was that line we used to hear......."You can't legislate morality." I hear some Christians----relatives of mine, even----rail on and on about how depraved our American society is........that view based on the abortion and homosexuality issues, mainly. They act like these are new, modern human issues.........GET REAL........they've been around since the beginning of time..........and they will be with us until time ends, humans being humans.

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We need to interact as people with each other........meet on the stage of life and get to know each other. I actually believe blogging does that in a tiny way.......allows a chance to reach out to faraway places to interact with other people. Otherwise, we get isolated and more fearful.

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Sorry for the rant! Enjoy the upcoming weekend!!

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[P.S. - Click here to find out possibly why Sarah Palin performed so well in last night's vice-presidential debate.]

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