Tuesday, September 22, 2026

First of all, Happy 40th Birthday to John!  He got to celebrate by going to the top of one of the grain legs to clear away debris from the distributor!    What a way to start your day, huh?

We continue to send corn to GPC today.  Larry is here and he’s delivering corn on contract.

The special additions for the new-to-us combine arrived this morning, and Brandon and John have begun to install this new equipment.  First, is the adjustable spout on the unload auger.  John has done this job before, so they are confident of this install.  Soon, Kyle, a mechanic will arrive from Hutson, Inc. to assist with the installation of shut-offs to the cross augers in the grain tank.  This feature will allow the clean-out of the long unloader auger even when the grain tank is not empty.  This reduces the strain on the system to start under full load, and it also reduces the weight hanging on that long unloader.

Brandon begins with the removal of the original spout

Next, he installs a special elbow adapter to hold the new spout

John assists Brandon to attach the pivoting spout to the auger.

This wiring harness must be installed to control the cross-auger shut-off system.  Looks complicated to me.

Kyle is removing the old sprockets in order to install the new electric clutch-sprockets.

The clutch-sprockets are installed, and ready to fine-tune their alignment. Then re-install the drive chain. Almost done!

I was able to do a simple light replacement this morning.  The warning blinker on the R side of the corn head was burned out.  It’s important to see this when traveling down the road with the corn head folded.  It was not a difficult task to remove the old one and install the new one.  Metric-sized allen (or hex) wrenches, 13mm socket wrench, and a Torx screwdriver were necessary tools.

The replacement works like new!

The weather is noticeably much cooler today at 63ºF (17C).  I might need to put on a sweatshirt!   The cloudy and cool day is not drying the fields very fast right now.  But it seems we have stuff to keep us busy when we are not yet back to harvesting.

I hope the sunshine returns soon so that we can go cut some soybeans!  That is my favorite task of all the things I get to do on the farm.