Monday, December 4, 2017

Oh, how the calendar flies by!  Here we are, already into the final month of the year.  It has gone fast, huh?

It has been a busy week or so at Carnahan & Sons.  We had a flurry of paperwork and meetings to finalize the end of our fiscal year on 11-30.  Those strategies are interesting for me as together we try to figure it out.  Then I must determine how to then enter the transactions into the books.  End-of-the-year takes a bigger effort from all of us.  The inventory numbers of grain in storage are precisely important.

Brandon has been delivering corn to GPC at Washington, and will also be taking some soybeans down to ADM at Newburgh, IN.  He and the “Pete” will be quite busy this month.

A couple farm improvements took place this past week, too.  The components of the replacement grain leg arrived.  Those parts came much quicker than we expected; the Creamer Metal Products company got right on our order, and voila!   Here it is.  We look forward to the greater capacity.  The transition from old to new will likely take place in Feb-Mar.  We will see…

Here is the stainless steel boot and the galvanized trunking for the new grain leg.

Under this 10-hole 10″ distributor is a motorized control box. The current distributor has such a control box, and we felt the new one should have a powered distributor, too. It really works pretty slick.

Also, we have been on the lookout for an affordable way to move up to a bigger tractor.  We priced new ones, of course, and the sticker shock this time was a ‘wow’ moment.  With corn <$4 it made more sense to find a good used one.  So, after months of looking, we were told about a 2016 trade-in from Kentucky that was equipped almost exactly as we specified.  The only box that didn’t get checked was the Michelin tires, this one has Firestones.  We went to see it in July, and the negotiations began.  The deal was acceptable, and now this JD 9520R (520 HP) has arrived at the farm.  Gotta admit, even though it has just under 500 hours on it, it looks new.  We traded in the 2010 JD 9330 (375 HP).  This should pull around our 60′ 2510H applicator and the 50′ no-till drill and cart quite well.   The hills shouldn’t be quite as intimidating this spring.

Here is the 9520R as it is still on Hutson’s delivery truck. Couldn’t ask for a better delivery day. It stayed clean as a whistle.

The new tractor is just about to hit the ground here at Carnahan & Sons.

The 9330 is on Hutson’s trailer and ready to leave the farm for the final time. It has been a good one…

John has already got a coat of wax on this baby!

I guess we’re like little boys over this stuff.  Anytime a new machine comes to the farm, we get excited about it!  Yes, it’s just stuff, but we’re looking forward to what this tractor will do for us for the next several years.

We watched the Boilermakers win a hard-fought contest over Northwestern yesterday evening.  The pregame projection show on the Mackey Arena floor was spectacular!  Look for it on YouTube.  It was part of the celebration of Mackey’s 50th birthday.  Mackey Arena (it was called Purdue Arena in ’67) opened on December 2, 1967 with a game against Purdue great John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins.  Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was their star, and our star was Rick Mount.  We lost that game by 2 points.  How do I remember that so well?  I was there.  Our neighbor, Mr. Richard Dutton asked if we’d like to go to the game at the new Purdue Arena.  My dad scoffed, and said the Governor couldn’t get a ticket to that one!  Well, the King (as we affectionately called him) had 4 seats, and gave me one of them!   What a thrill.  And what a good neighbor he was.

Have a wonderful December.  It is supposed to get to 62º today.  By Wednesday, the highs will be in the 30s!  Welcome to Indiana weather.  Really, down deep I hope we get some snow…