Thursday, September 7, 2023
The week started with temperatures in the 90s, but today it’s supposed to reach the high 70s. That is going to be really nice.
Our church had an outdoor fellowship dinner at the Wheatland Park yesterday evening. We were concerned last week when 100ºF (38C) was predicted for that day. But as the day got closer, the temperature actually got to 85ºF (29C), and it was pretty comfortable in the shade. It was a nice outreach to the town. The kids that came especially enjoyed the bouncy house! We had a lovely evening… several folks from around town joined us for a good supper and conversations.
Ryan and Brandon have been inside most of the storage bins to make sure the walls and floors are clean and ready to receive corn and soybeans when harvest begins. (I estimate we will start on the 18th).
The CIH 8250 combine is fully ‘ready’.
Even the fuel tank is topped off and ready!
John has been working to get us set up with some little 2-way radios that we can use to communicate in the fields. Our old FM business band radios are a little bit past the end of their useful life, and he has discovered what we think is a less expensive alternative. These should be faster to use than dialing up the phone, and their range seems to work at a couple miles or more. So, we are hoping these fill the bill for in-field communication among the combines, grain cart, and trucks.
These little Midland brand radios we think will help communications in the harvest fields.
We got the old JD 1560 drill hooked up to the 6145R tractor, and used that to plant some rye at the Harry farm where Shepards did that construction/conservation work. Even though the soil was pretty dry, once this rye gets started, it should protect the field from erosion over the winter. We will terminate the rye early next spring ahead of planting the field to corn. In the new waterway across the south side of the field, we will crank on some fescue seed. The rye will hold until the fescue can get established. I plan to mow that waterway each summer to make sure it stays clear of woody sprouts.
Planting rye on a dry day. The small drill is only 15 feet wide, so it took quite a while to plant the 51 acres!
Here, I am planting rye in the new waterway. Late this month, we will also spread fescue seed on this waterway. Once the fescue gets to be an established sod, it will protect the waterway from erosion.
The guys also have the grain cart hooked to the 9520R tractor. All the connections were fine. John did replace the hitch in the cart with a Category 5 size, so as to accommodate the larger hitch pin in this tractor. It all looks pretty good and it is ready for fall work. The newly-installed PTO in the tractor works great.
The Demco 1322 grain cart is hooked up and ready.
I still have to hook up the 712FC header to the 780 combine to make sure the header height control and the folding mechanism works right. It should, for it was working well when it was put away last fall. I’m sure the oil level in each row’s gearbox will be checked and corrected if needed.
I decided to check on the corn fields late this morning, and I took a hand sample of the first-planted field. The moisture reading was 31.5%! That was above what I expected. With a cooler day today, the ‘solar dryer’ is not working as hard as we would like. In about 10 days, my hope is that the grain will test <25%. Our preferred moisture content to start would be 22-23%, but that’s not likely for 3 weeks or more. We will probably start with some corn for a few days. Hopefully, some beans will get ripe after a few days corn harvest. Then, we can cut beans while the solar dryer works even more on the corn.
A nice-looking ear, just more soggy than we need
So we have made some more progress toward #harvest23. Almost there…
