How Great The Yield From A Fertile Field

Random musings from an old farmer about life, agriculture, and faith

Friday, October 26, 2018

Familiar Seat

On the 12th of October while replacing a slip clutch on the corn head, it started snowing.  I figured we would have a few flurries and they would melt when they hit the ground.  I was wrong.  It snowed big flakes for a half an hour, and it started accumulating on the grass until the precipitation changed back to a light rain.

A little over a week earlier, while harvesting soybeans, the belts on our combine started slipping.  I stopped and got off to inspect, and started smelling smoke.  I opened the engine compartment and grabbed the fire extinguisher.  There were several spots where clumps of bean chaff were burning/smoldering.  After putting out the fire, I realized that anti-freeze had been spraying all over the engine compartment and was the cause of the belts slipping and also probably kept the fire in check.  We are not sure what happened when and what caused what, but the fire had burned a hole in a radiator hose and also we had a blown head gasket on the engine.  That would mean an engine overhaul.
Our dealer brought us a rental machine on a flatbed and loaded ours up for the trip to their shop.  We finished that field with the rental machine, and that night it started raining.  We used it once more on corn (between rains) the next week before the dealership sold it out from under us.  We waited a day for them to bring us a replacement rental, and then our platform wouldn't calibrate to the new combine.  So we sat.  Two days later, a mechanic finally showed up and got us running again.  We ran this machine that evening, and while at a funeral the next morning received a call that our combine was finally repaired (after 15 days in the shop).  I drove the rental back to the dealership and drove our machine back home.  By 4:30 that afternoon we were harvesting and I was in a familiar seat again.

We finished the rest of our corn and soybean harvest with no major problems.  We still have a field of double crop soybeans, but it may be awhile before they will dry down.
In the last field of beans, I chased a big fat skunk ahead of me for two rounds.  It eventually decided to leave the bean field and head a different direction.



He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
Luke 1:52