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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Corn Anchors

Yikes! What is this bizarre creature?

Its what remains of a cornstalk after the combine cuts through the field. See the amazing, spider-like support system that anchors the cornstalk to the ground during the growing season. Talk about being self-supportive.........
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The other night at my niece's high school variety show, sitting in front of me was an acquaintance who lives near where I grew up......in the neighborhood where the F5 tornado swept through last May. I asked about her experiences on the day of the storm. She said she and her husband, two daughters and grandchildren were busy at picking out invitations for her upcoming 50th wedding anniversary when the storm blew in. They all ran to the basement, of course, when they saw the ominous clouds approaching. After the tornado passed by, they came back up to find windows blown out all over the house, and glass, dirt, and cornstalks EVERYWHERE........in every cupboard and drawer, and embedded in furniture and carpets.

I used to attend a Bible study at this lady's house and I recall she was quite a decorator. She was a dealer for Home Interiors, and her house was full of decorative products from that company. She said, though, that NOT ONE of the figurines in her living room was broken during the storm, even though dirt and cornstalks were all over the place,
with some stalks even standing upright in candle votive cups! Weird, eh!?

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True Farm Wife Blogpost

I know you're dying to know what I'm doing right now. Twitter, chirp, cackle. Upon awakening this morning, I happily anticipated a day of sorting and straightening up in my cluttered house. However, Husband, characteristically, had other plans for me. (I should really call him "Eeyore" here on the blog.......after Winnie-the-Pooh's perpetually down-in-the-mouth donkey friend.)

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Anyhow, first of all, I was sent to our small town to pick up 1000 lbs. of soybean meal, 1000 lbs. of barn lime, and 100 lbs. of salt. Thank goodness I have a pickup at my disposal. (As you can see in the photo, there's lots of corn left in the fields around here.) Then I hustled to the veterinarian's office to buy cow eartags and calf scour pills. Also, I had to open father-in-law's house up for the furnace guy. The igniter was broken off. I had a nice visit with the furnace guy, who was a couple years ahead of me in school, and was pretty wild back then, but he has settled down and is a good dependable heating and cooling guy now.

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The rest of today I will spend in the tractor, bringing round bales home from the field. I'm really excited......I get to use the ickiest tractor on the place, an AllisChalmers 190, with no heater. Husband, out of the goodness of his heart, did just now put the doors back on the tractor's cab. Ah, well.....when I was young, I often drove a cabless IH 560 to haul corn on cold late fall days, so today's task will be luxurious compared to that.

I get a kick out of the unintentionally lined up bales in the photo above. They don't usually end up that way in the field after being baled. And, notice the herniated bale in the mid-foreground.......the netwrap on top must have split.

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Wish me luck!! Have a great day yourself!

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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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Cornfield Video

If you wish........spend a few seconds in an Iowa cornfield in October. As the corn leaves rustle around you, whisper a prayer. If you have time, send up a prayer for M & M, good friends of my daughter and her husband. M & M are going into the hospital tonight for the birth of their twins. M & M are very excited for they've waited many years to have children. M is 38-weeks along and the babies are both around six pounds, so that's great! M & M chose not to know their babies' gender(s).......they wanted to experience one of life's more pleasant surprises!

[Update: M & M have been blessed with two baby BOYS! On October 17......weighing 6 lb. 6 oz. and 6 lb. 11 oz.! Good sizes for twins! Mom and Dad doing fine. Thanks for prayers!]

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Enter the cornfield:

Farm Linkage & Thinkage

Goodness.......I just remembered that I live on a farm and should show you how the corn looks right now! This first photo shows Corn Street on a plunge downward with Wall Street and the world financial markets! Whoa.......hold onto your hat!! I was relieved to hear that AIG CEO's are able to hold onto their million dollar bonuses even though everyday people lose their savings and pensions. Insurance company execs, too, will continue to rake in the dough while few of us peons can afford health care. Nobody has a remedy for these problems, so carry on, big guys, the world is your oyster!

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Here's another cornfield......uh, sorry that scraggly red vine got in the way! I don't know how that happened.

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And, how about posting some farm news links, too. (OK......good idea, Jeannelle.....do it.)

You betcha......here we go:

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Iowa Farmer Today

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AgWeb.com - Market news and more

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Dairy Today

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Hoard's Dairyman Magazine

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Dairy Star Newspaper

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Iowa Family Living

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Ho-hum. Farm news is calming.......what is more normal than hearing the droning voice of a radio announcer giving the daily market report. No impassioned Right or Left talk. I think farmers should take over the government.......then it would be very boring, but peaceful.

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One of our U.S. senators from Iowa is Chuck Grassley......a FARMER! Can you believe it?! And, he's from New Hartford, not far from here. Probably farmers are too sensible to run for president,......although Jimmy Carter was supposedly a peanut farmer. Our other U.S. senator is Tom Harkin, Democrat. They've both held their Senate seats for many years, and I don't think I'm too far off base in saying they are both well-respected throughout Iowa.

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Harkin - Wikipedia

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Grassley - Wikipedia

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I'm done listening to or watching or reading any election coverage. It will be nothing but rotten from here on out. October Surprises on-the-house coming up for everyone.......grab your shields.......here comes the MUD and CRUD!! Go for it, Guys & Gal......show the world how unkind and misleading U.S. politicians can be! And, be beacons of smarminess! The world is watching......and, it is worried.

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I'm not ashamed of the U.S., but I am ashamed of what our presidential elections are like, especially in the final weeks before Election Day. To what can this time period be compared? A mud-wrestling match, probably. You'd better get a good look at the candidates before the match begins, because soon they'll be completely covered. Sometimes I think We-the-People should vote only for members of Congress and then THEY in turn can vote and choose a president and vice-president. I admit, too, that I feel consternation over the fact that a presidential candidate is free to reach into the woodwork and foist a virtual unknown on us as his running mate.

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Yesterday, I heard a C & W radio DJ spout......."We're gonna go to church and then we're gonna go to war!" Honestly......I don't think I've ever heard church and war used like that in the same sentence. It must have been an attempt at an ironic joke........No one who's pro-life would be in favor of waging a war which might kill innocent people in the crossfire! Maybe he was commenting on a song.......is there a C & W song on that theme? I'm not normally a C & W listener, so I don't know........I was in a store when I heard it.

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Hey......if I could......I'd nominate Iowa's Senators Grassley and Harkin for president and vice-president......their choice. They have experience and integrity. No "skeletons" in their closets, that I know of.......No Troopergate, no Ayers, no Muthee, No Wright, no Black Liberation beliefs, no End-Times beliefs, no divorce, no pregnant teenage daughter about to be forced into a too-early marriage........get my drift?? We could do without this circus sideshow stuff. We need leaders with plain old honesty, decency, and courage to do what's right. What is wrong with us, United States of America? How did we get to where we are with this 2008 election?

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Last night I was at a football game........no one seems too worried about the financial "crisis".......I heard one guy say his pension has lost about $5000 so far, but he expects that money will return eventually. As we all know, its best not to discuss politics, so you don't hear too many people around here doing that.

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Here's an article from our most recent Lutheran Witness magazine: Priests in Voting Booths by Uwe Siemon-Netto. If you have time, please read it; the article cuts through all the sideshows and discusses what the most serious issue may be in this election.

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I'm going to turn OFF the comments for this post so "rhymsie" won't chastise me again for breaking my promise to not blog about politics anymore.

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Gulp.........have a happy Saturday!!

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GPS Map - Soybean Field

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I was planning to NOT do a blogpost today..........thus, this is not really a blogpost. Its just something cool and interesting that I wanted to show you.

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Below is a printout of our 15-acre soybean field that was combined last Thursday. North is at the top; click the photo to read the yield chart below the map to understand what the colors denote. Each color represents a range of yield----in bushels per acre.

Its amazing to me how this information can be so precisely recorded! The GPS system in the combine interacts with a satellite miles above the earth to produce this data. Kind of scary, eh? Truthfully, Husband could get along just fine NOT having these precise yield details to look at, but modern ag technology provides it, regardless.

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Ok......that's it for this "not-really-a-blogpost".........HAVE A GREAT DAY!!

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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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Solomon's Seal & Friends

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Due to the title of this post, did you hope to find a biblical prophecy theme here today? Solomon was into proverbial wisdom and love songs more than prophecy. The END TIMES may or may not be upon us, but I will continue to take pictures of God's creations.........plants and flowers and whatever else looks interesting! If the Rapture roundup angels come to this area, they may have to look in the road ditch to find me.

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Well, the fruits in this photo below resemble blueberries or small grapes.........but, they're not, of course. They are Solomon's Seal berries and I've no idea whether or not they're edible and am not brave enough to bite into one to find out! My wildflower book states: The roots were used as medicine and food by Native Americans and pioneers, and were ground into flour or eaten boiled.

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Here's a website devoted entirely to Solomon's Seal........this quote can be found there: Common experience teacheth, that in the world there is not to be found another herbe comparable to it. ---- from Gerrard's Herbal, 1597. (I'm not necessarily promoting their product, but it is interesting to read about.)

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Here's something I know is edible........and usable for many, many purposes, from cooking oil to motor oil.........soybeans! The golden leaves of a week ago have turned brown and shriveled, revealing pods clinging up and down the bean plant stalks. Harvest-time for this field looms in the near future.

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This branch-full of wild plums hides out in a road ditch a couple miles away from here.

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And, here's another view of the wild grapevine down by Crane Creek. I adjusted the color a bit so if you click the photo to enlarge it you should be able to see the clumps of tiny grapes draped like strands of jewels around the tree branches!

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Have a wonderful day! Find some autumn beauty in your little corner of the world!

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Tiling Season

The tiling machine and crew have been working here the last few days:

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I love big, noisy, earth-moving machines.......maybe I was a heavy machine operator in a former life! (Just kidding!)
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This tiling project is going on in one of our fields right now. Drainage tile is what I'm referring to........perforated plastic tile which gets buried a few feet under the surface of the ground to catch rainwater which soaks into the soil. The water drains through this buried tile into the "crick", helping the soil to dry out faster and improve crop-growing conditions.

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Here's some straight connecting pieces:

These looked cool against the blue sky!

The tiling machine is a noisy beast! The sound of it is just fascinating to me, for some reason; its similar to a bulldozer Cat at work. I love it! It takes me back to when I was a kid and the old-fashioned clay tiling machine would come to the our farm. The complicated conglomeration of a machine would roar and growl as it inched its way across the field like a snail, cutting the trench and laying the lines of clay tile. Nowadays, the tile is plastic tubing, but the process of cutting the trench and threading the tile into the ground is similar.

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Watch and listen if you wish!! The video is not of great quality, but the sound is cool!! (At least, I think so!)