Catching Up

The week before this past week we worked on harvesting soybeans most of the week.  Light rains caused us to switch back to corn for a couple of days.

Last weekend we spent a blessed day of worship and fellowship in Princeville at the Illinois Potluck.  I always enjoy visiting with old friends and catching up with their lives.  We took Dad, Mom, and Aunt Pearl with us and we got them to church a little later than they are used to. :)

Monday, we worked on soybeans again and finished our last field.  We then switched the combine back to corn and entered the harvest home stretch.

Monday night, I let the old farmer's lovely wife turn on the furnace for the first time this fall.  She said the temperature in the house was in the fifties.  Just like camping.

Tuesday morning we welcomed 540 head of 3 week old weaner pigs to the farm.  We got them all settled in to their new home and then it was back out to the field.

Not only was it a good apple year, it was also a good walnut year.  Since I have not gotten around to cutting down the walnut tree over our driveway, I still have to do a lot of walnut kicking several times a day.  Something unusual happened with the walnut tree this year.  I would say about 75% of all the leaves (most still green) dropped in a 24 hour period.  Since walnut leaves are compound, it made for quite a carpet under the tree.  It reminded me of the Ginkgo trees on campus at both ICC and U of I.  I loved the way they dropped their unique fan shaped leaves all at one time.

We harvested the corn in the field that the pipeline split in half.  Most of the pipe is buried, but the piles of black dirt are still blocking the way.  Again, we had to cross a neighbor's field to get to the back half of ours.  I saw the first pheasants of the season in that corn field; one cock and three hens.

Saturday night was the Eureka Home Benefit Dinner.  I stayed in the field as long as I could, so I didn't get in on the preparation work that I was supposed to help with.  Apparently they got along just fine without me, because it went off without a hitch.  I did stay after to help clean up and take down.  I was the only male at our table, but I survived, and even enjoyed the conversations.

After a full week, I was thankful today for a day of rest.

Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
Exodus 34:21

Pipeline

Son #2 works with a couple of engineers from India who wanted to come out and visit the farm during harvest.  The parents of one of the men are visiting him from India for a couple of months.  The parents do not speak English.   We gave them rides on the combine and they were very impressed with the size of the machinery and the scope of the operation.  The father is a farmer in India and has a medium sized farm of about 13 acres.  They do have a small tractor about the size of a large garden tractor, otherwise everything is done by hand or beasts of burden.  They had not seen a confinement hog operation before either, as they don't have many pigs in India.

Wednesday, we helped harvest a field of soybeans for Jerry (see previous post), then moved our equipment to our farm near Goodfield.  Enbridge is building a gas pipeline from Flanagan IL, to Cushing, OK and it cuts across our Goodfield farm.  There is an old pipeline already in place, and they are adding a second bigger (36") one.  We finished harvesting  the front half, then needed to figure out how to get to the back half and get the grain out.  We were able to get permission from two neighboring farmers, whose crops were already harvested, to cross their land behind ours.

The barrier splitting our field in half.

The pipe welded together waiting for the trench to be dug and then buried.

We finished that field after dark, and when I shut the combine off, I smelled diesel fuel.  We couldn't find the problem in the dark, so we waited till morning to discover an injection line leaking.  We first checked with the John Deere Industrial dealer in Goodfield for the line.  They didn't have it but told us that the Lacon dealer had one in stock.  We drove to Lacon.  They had one in stock, but it wasn't the right one.  Lacon told us that the dealer in Pontiac had the right part, so we headed cross country from Lacon to Pontiac.  Fortunately, they did have the right part, so we bought it and headed back home.  We got the line installed and drove the combine back home and started the next field at 3:00 in the afternoon.  Another short day in the field.

By the way, the Bacon Soda tastes like cold, artificially flavored bacon grease.

And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves?
Zechariah 4:12