Outing

The weather has turned cool, wet, and dreary.  Not at all uncommon for this time of year.

Tuesday afternoon we drove up to the library for their annual book sale.  It had started on Saturday, and we learned when we got there that after 3:00 the remaining books were free.  Needless to say, we walked out with a box full of free books!

This morning I rode with Son #1 to inspect a farm he manages in Fulton County.  It is mostly reclaimed strip mine ground owned by the Chicago MWRD, and comprises about 13,000 acres.  They used to ship sludge down the river from Chicago in barges, then pump it to the property through pipes and apply it to the farm ground.  It is a mix of timber, lakes, pasture, and farmland.  They do not allow hunting on the property, so as we drove around, we saw numerous deer, a large flock of wild turkeys, and lots of ducks and geese.  It is the kind of country that I wouldn't mind owning some land in someday for my log cabin and lake.
It was a nice half day outing for the old farmer.

For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Isaiah 51:3

Riders

We finished harvest last Thursday evening.  The last field had the best yield and had the driest corn.  Overall, our corn yields were below average and our soybean yields were a little above average.  There was just too much rain in June for the corn.  Since the second half of the growing season was dryer, that seemed to favor the soybeans.  We only had one day all fall that we didn't harvest because of rain!  We couldn't have asked for better harvest weather.

I've been catching up on book-work, taking inventory, and preparing fiscal year-end information.  Also, since I think we may have a small corn insurance claim, I've been working with our crop adjuster in determining our loss.  Tillage work has started, but we have had minor tractor issues that have slowed us down.  I spent an afternoon blowing off the combine and doing some minor repair work before we bury it in the shed for winter.  I have also been doing some building maintenance.

If I counted correctly, we gave combine (and tractor and truck) rides to at least 29 people outside of working family members this fall!  We had every thing from an Indian family who works with Son #2 at Cat, church friends with kids, to inner city home schooled kids, to mothers with babies, to my daughters and granddaughters.  At times, we had 3 riders in the cab with me at one time.  Some days were quite interesting!


Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.
II Kings 18:23

Toads

It must be the year of the toads!  They have been all over the place the last week or so.  Everywhere you walk across the lawn, you had to watch where you stepped.  They were on the driveway and roads (some were flat), on the patio, in the garage, and in our outbuildings.  I caught two of them jumping through the door as I entered the house.  And then one morning there was one hopping around in the basement.  Most of them were small toads; not the usual big plump ones we typically see.  I wonder if the wet spring/summer had anything to do with the population explosion.  With the cooler weather this weekend, I haven't been seeing as many.

Sunday morning at daybreak, I had just finished filling the dog dish with food and feeding the cats, when Gus took off across the yard.  There was a raccoon under the bushes near the house and Gus spotted it and treed it.  He stood guard while I retrieved my .22 from the house, and then I dispatched the coon from the tree.  Gus now has another trophy to play with for awhile.

And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
Exodus 8:3

Harvest Update

This past week we had a good week harvesting.  The weather this fall has been nearly ideal.  We combined soybeans most of the week and it went well except several mornings were foggy and damp and we couldn't start until afternoon.  We finished with soybeans late last night, so we will try to finish corn this week.  In one of the fields that we were harvesting corn in this week, I found cattails growing in a wet area.  You know we had a wet year when you have cattails in your field!

The previous week was a bit more challenging.  Wednesday night we finished a field knowing we had some internal problems with the combine.  Thursday morning I crawled in the back of the combine and took a picture of the missing section of chaffer on the upper left hand side.  I took the picture to the service department at our dealer and he ordered all the parts he thought we would need.  No local dealer had the parts in stock, but since we are 2 hours away from the John Deere parts distribution warehouse in Milan, I volunteered to leave immediately to pick them up.  I called the service department as I left Milan for home and they sent a mechanic to the farm to start dis-assembly of the damaged parts.  Before I got home, they called and said the damage was much more serious than previously thought.  The chaffer and sieves had broken away from the sidewalls and they also needed replacing (along with other items).  They called the order to Milan and my brother took off in his pickup on our second trip to the Quad Cities. While the second trip was in progress, I drove the combine to the dealership because they wanted it in the shop to do the work.  What they failed to inform us, was that the parts ordered would not fit in the back of a pickup!  My brother called me from the warehouse and told me he would need a trailer to bring them home.  My nephew was drafted to make the third trip.  I helped him hook up the trailer and off he went.  It was a late night for them!  Friday morning my brother delivered the parts to the dealership and they put two mechanics on the job.  The Service Manager called late Saturday morning to let me know that they just finished the repairs, so I had the machine back home by 1:00.  We missed two and a half days in the field that week.

That Friday morning I discovered that the grain dryer went down over night.  The motor starter contactors wouldn't release, so the wet corn auger wouldn't shut off when the dryer was full.  That meant that we burned up a set of belts.  Our electrician had to order a new starter which didn't come until Monday.  Since we weren't in the field anyway it didn't matter much, so the farm was a little quieter over the weekend.

That Sunday, we were invited to Goodfield for their Invite-a-Guest weekend.  We had a blessed day in church and enjoyed catching up with Lee and Alice and four-wheeling around their estate.  It had been a while since we were in Goodfield church and it was good to catch up with a lot of friends and relatives.

Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
Jeremiah 5:24