Fall Harvest

[paul case]

you better watch it patty,
talking like that norm will put you back out on the tractor hauling beans or corn to the elevator. i bet you could get delivery of your ticket now anyway.    smiley_alcoholic_01
pc

[WDH]

Patty,

Sorry about the ankle.  That medicinal treatment should help the recovery!

[Gary_C]

I hope you guys that have already harvested their crops have not sold them yet. The USDA crop reports out today dropped 9 bushels per acre off the average corn yields this year and the markets on corn, beans, and wheat went limit up today and probably will again on Monday when the markets open again.

This year it may pay to procrastinate.

[SwampDonkey]

When my grandfather on mom's side grew his one and only crop of potatoes on 10 acres or so: He harvested the crop and got them off to the siding to be sold and loaded on train; Got $2 a barrel. A neighbor told him he should have held off on the sale. They were going to wait for a better price. Within a week or so the price dropped to small change and they took a loss. This was 60 years ago. My grandfather never let them off easy.  ;D :D

[Norm]

Gary we presold into this latest rally and were out as I trust the USDA about as much as I trust... :D

Steve the combine operator had about 25K bu of corn to sell. He meant to sell it before the report but got busy and forgot to. You're right sometimes procrastination pays off.

[Kansas]

I highly suspect the USDA came out and inspected my soybean fields. That would explain everything.

Actually, things came out better than I feared. Averaged about 33 bu per acre. What hasn't been harvested is having trouble drying down. I imagine I will be somewhere around the 30 bu mark when its all over.

[SwampDonkey]

They've been harvesting beans here this week also. There was only 1 day of rain and lots of wind since.

[sandhills]

Well as you folks said about procrastinating, it paid off this time.  I priced my beans the day before the report but really didn't have enough to matter (I think they looked at my bean feild too).  The nice thing was I had no corn priced and sold everything I had at the elevator today for 5.05, yeilds are lacking around here so the price definetly helps out some just wish I had all the corn at the elevator.

[Norm]

This is what happens when you hang up a combine on a Missouri crossing.



First you pull out the combine and then you retrieve the head.

[ScottAR]

That really stinks!   

Is a Missouri crossing anything like a low water bridge?

[isawlogs]

 I'll take a shot in the dark here and saye it may be a crossing with no bridge.

Norm , was unbolted off or tore off ??? 

[SwampDonkey]

I'll take a shot in the dark here and saye it may be a crossing with no bridge.

A ford.  ;)

[Norm]

Yep just a small crick with no bridge. The head was part torn off and part taken off but no real damage fortunately. There's 12 acres over there to finish today and then we are done with harvest! I brought the trackhoe over yesterday and reformed the crossing. Hopefully we can get over there without any more problems.

[paul case]

hows the ankle patty?

pc

[Patty]

The ankle is much better, thank you. All the black bruising has turned to shades of purple and I returned the rented crutches to the store today. I am still confined to a chair most of the day with the foot propped up, but the swelling seems to be going down some.  8)

Norm and the gang finished up on the harvest at noon today. They did all of the  beans and corn in a little more than two weeks, taking Sundays off of course. The weather has been perfect, no rain for 15 days! He will start in on field prep later this week we hope if the rain stays away. This is the earliest that harvest has been completed, and in the least amount of time. Good crew and good equipment make all the difference.  ;)

[Warbird]

Congrats you guys on the successful harvest.  Glad the ankle is healing up, Patty.

[isawlogs]

Glad to hear all is taken care of , Patty , good that you are on the mend     ;)

[paul case]

im glad to hear it too. i know that most of those time wasters during harvest or whatever  are weather, breakdowns, and poor help. sounds like you avoided 2 of them at least. pc

[Don_Papenburg]

I should be done with beans this week . I have 2/3s of the puzzlepatch done . The last should be dry enough by friday. Hope I never have to replant pacthes of a big field again.

[Norm]

Well it sure feels good not to be getting up so early and working so late but things went so smooth that to be honest it was the most fun I've had working in a long time. Our crew of 4 completed 1200 acres of corn and beans in a 13 day stretch. I do want to give all of the credit to Steve and Diane though. Their work ethic and good equipment made it all possible. Steve has been farming for 30 years and really knows how to get things done. Every night after the rest of us would head home they would work a couple of more hours and the next morning when we would show up everything would be ready for the next days work. I have some more videos of corn harvest I'll get on here once I catch up with all the other work that gets put off to the side.

Patty has been a real trooper and is still in a lot of pain and not able to move or put weight on her ankle. Like a true farm girl not a word of complaint other than she felt like she'd let the rest of us down by getting hurt. I'm darn proud of her.

[Ron Scott]

Well done with the harvest and that Patty's lasting ankle pain is letting up some as it now goes through its color change. Looked like a very professional harvest operation.

[Warbird]

Aww.  You did good, Patty.  If I may offer one small bit of advice?  Don't try to hurry up the healing process too much.  Speaking from experience, if you try to go too fast with ankle or knee injuries, you can end up hurting yourself again and then it takes even longer.  That being said, we're praying you heal up real quick and get back on your feet.

[Patty]

Thanks guys, your kind words mean a lot to us. 

[Okrafarmer]

Thanks guys for asking.  My ankle hurts like heck and I hate sitting around with my foot propped up on a pillow while Norm and the gang are out having so much fun. That hurts more than anything!

I am such a klutz. I was at the coop on the scales when I had to jump down out of the tractor to grab my ticket. There were about 25 trucks & semi's waiting in line behind me, so I was trying to be cool and get in & out as fast as possible. While I was jumping down, the scale guy was hand signaling me through the glass, and I was trying to figure out what the heck he wanted and was not watching the ground..............anyway I landed on a step wrongly and twisted the ankle and promptly fell down right in front of the window.  : (lots of witnesses) I was so embarrassed that I got up, grabbed my ticket, hobbled up the tractor ladder and got the tractor off the scales so the line could move on. I looked at the ankle finally and saw it had swollen up, it looked like a golf ball had been inserted under my skin and was flowing over my shoe.  I did not want to disrupt harvest so I drove on back to the field, and texted Norm....he got out of the combine, took one look at it, (about an hour had passed, so now it was REALLY swollen). I told him not to worry, just keep on with the harvest, I could get myself to the hospital for X-Rays, and I would call him when I got home. The folks at the hospital said it would've been a whole lot less painful if I had just gone ahead and broke the darn thing. Why do they say those things? I could've gone all day without that knowledge.

The doctor has me on crutches now, and orders to keep the foot elevated, and not to put any weight on the foot until it gets better. I don't do the sitting around very well....I have read every item on the internet twice now, read my book, twiddled my thumbs, did some embroidering, and I have only been down a day and a half! By next week I will have driven myself and everybody around me completely crazy. With any luck at all, I hope to be back up and around in a week or so.

Patty, if I remember right, you shouldn't need to clutch to operate that tractor. It is powershift, right? For stopping, shift into neutral and use brakes. For slowing down, downshift (no clutching). For starting out, ease it into a slow gear and powershift up. It is that kind, right?

But I guess bumping around in that tractor might aggravate the ankle. . . .

[WDH]

Patty,

It is good that the harvest is in and that the ankle is healing!  Concalesence well .  Makes me want a pina colada ;D.