Saturday, October 15, 2011

Gettin' my Farm on!

For the last few years the family and I have gone back to East Dakota to the Grandparents house during harvest time. I've slowly been let into the process of harvest, first learning how to help dry the corn and put it into the bins. The next year, I helped by "chopping stalks" in some of the corn fields. This year, I was allowed to drive the grain cart. Now this is quite a step up and I must say I really felt like I was doing some real farming.
Moving my way up the tractor ladder
I followed the combine and when I got the "sign", I pulled up along side and the combine and it would empty its corn into the cart I was pulling. I would do this 2 times then I would empty my cart into the semi trailer.  When the semi was full, it would take the load back to the farm to be emptied (via the auger) into the holding bin, wait for its turn in the dryer, and then into the bins.
$200K and only driven 4 weeks a year...sweet.
That's it. Farming is easy as hell and the equipment is cool to drive.

Tomorrow we go back to the Twin Cities, much to the delight of my Father in Law I'm sure.

Later

4 comments:

  1. $200,000 dollar piece of farming equipment to a farmer is like a $12,000 dollar tri bike to a triathlete! We all have our toys I guess. Does that tractor have A/C? My ultimate goal besides IM Kona is to retire, have a house on a farm, and live off the land as much as I realistically can. Sounds like you had a nice get-a-way!

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  2. I watched a new show on the History channel called "Harvest" I think that was the name, I got to learned how all this stuff works, sorta. I was fascinated by it

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  3. BDD - I'll have to check "on Demand" for that show, sounds interesting.
    KC - Those tractors and Combines have it all! A/C, sweet sound systems, and GPS that can literally drive itself! No joke, the GPS can drive the machinery and during planting season it can get the rows within 1/2 inch of each other.

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  4. That looks like it would be fun!!!

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