My year in pics. (long)

Some of us on the case board did this and it was fun so I thought I would do it here, maybe add a few other colors and some off topic stuff. Hope you don't mind. I'm eating some of the oreos I got for christmas while doing this, so if there are some crumbs on the pics I apologize.

This is my 56 400. It sat torn down in the garage for 5 years for want of $. Got it running last winter and this was it's first work.



This is the day I got my 77 combine home, was just before planting.



Chopped some hay at my friend Jeff's place, put the 400 on the blower to break it in. Worked great, blew the hay right up a 60' silo bout as fast as the blower would take it. Proof that any dummy can overhaul an engine. lol




6/6/12, first fresh georgia peach of the year.




My fathersday present from my oldest daughter. Hand made for my truck.



Crash in Oh.



Some of Jeff's crops this summer. We managed to get everything just right this year. It did get dry and hurt some, but the oats still went over 70 bu./acre and the corn 130+ which is not bad for our erea.



Stopped at this museum just north of Omaha on I29. It's pretty nice, but wasn't open when I was there so I just took a few pics.






Guns drawn, only a few miles from my house.



Got to combine some oats with the 400 and 77.



baled some hay



Had some help.





Built a trailer one weekend.



Some things along the road again.



They don't call them the smokies for nuthin.



Few sunsets. Pensylvania



Michigan



Indiana



Chopped some corn



Mounted the corn picker



Picked some corn




Bought another combine, now have to figure out how to get it home.



Christmas dinner at my house. Had bout 1/2 the family there.



A few videos of some crazy drivers from my new dash cam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcdY-aewBBo&list=PLRVTurILTBa6OknBZVNFQNQpSo_iXJZSi

Guess I gotta learn how to do video posts. lol Sure
messed that up. sorry

Just want to let you know how much us northern fellas appreciate pictures without snow in them. Don't know how we kept our sanity before the internet. Like to see those Cases and Ollies getting some work done!

Great pictures!
Thanks for sharing.

Steve A W

Nice thanks for sharing.I like to see older tractors and machinery being used.Our newest is a 1977.Hope 2013 finds you well and happy,post next Dec with more pics. Tom

Really awesome pictures! Thanks for sharing

Great pics!Thanks.

Good pics. Great country folks.

jon f mn:

Great pics., thanks for sharing.

I'm NOT a farmer by any stretch of the
imagination, so I'm ignorant as to many of the
farming methods & practices. Although I do like
old machinery of any kind and like seeing it
restored and put back into service doing what it
was intended to do. So here's my question: In one
of your pictures you show a corn picker being
mounted on your tractor, - most of the corn
pickers that I've seen were either self-propelled
or pulled by a tractor, - yours is the first one
that I have seen that was mounted ON the tractor,
so how well does it work as compared to the other
types.

Thank You!

Doc

Those were better for opening fields so you don't have to drive on the rows on the first trip around the outside and threw the middle. They are loud and dirty to operate and take a lot of time and work to mount. The benefits weren't worth the extra effort and discomfort so they became obsolete before pull types, but only by a few years because combines soon took over. If you look at my post above I posted some videos of it working.

jon f mn:

I watched your videos. Next set of questions: In your video "combining oats 009" - I may be wrong, but it seems to me that a lot of oats would be lost in the mowing before being picked up by the combine for threshing, as adverse to combining with a machine that mows and threshes all in one operation.

Thank You for your responses; I'm learning, slowly but surely, but I'm learning.

What part of the State are you in? I have a sister in Minneapolis, she's a tenured Professor at the Univ. of Minn. .

Doc

I really liked the pics of the MM mule system, combine and picker. We had always been told the New Idea Uni system was patterned off of it but had never seen one before. I think it is great to see it now.In 69 my dad traded the pull type IH combine, 2MH picker, one row Fox chopper a New Holland "crimper and a Farmall 400 that was really nice on 702 tractor with combine, chopper, picker all two row and mounted. It had a big block GMC 401 cu gas 6 cylinder in it. A lot different than the MM.Dad tried to get the 400 back but it sold in just a few days so it was gone.

I think it was more than that. I think New Idea bought the "uni-system" from MM. Or maybe it happened when MM went to White. I don't know about the timing.
It's interesting to me that it took so many years for the longitudinal cage sheller that MM(and others) used so successfully to become the "new" rotary combine!

Where we live, half way between Minneapolis and Duluth, we have a lot of trouble getting hay and grain dry enough because it's so humid and we get a lot of rain. This is especially bad during first crop hay and again at the end of the summer. We cut the grain just after the heads turn and let it dry in the row, this gets it done a week sooner. There is very little loss this way, in fact less loss than if it gets late because of rain on standing grain. There is not much small grain done here anymore and with the larger faster combines now most is cut straight now.

Great pictures!
I often think about they way you guys over the pond measure crop yields in bushels per acre (ie. by volume) whereas over here in The UK and I presume other parts of Europe we measure it by weight, (i.e. tons per acre , or tonnes per hectare but that's another story) I can well remember many years ago we grew 25 acres of a six row winter barley called Athene and oh man did we get a lotta trailer loads off that!
But it actually [i:5a49186013]weighed[/i:5a49186013] bugger all...

BOY! You sure get around a lot. I have been past the MM museum a few times and have always meant to stop, but never have. I have been through your area once and really appreciate the difference in landscape from here (about 7 hours SouthWest of you). How well does that snowblower work on that tractor by the way?

Yes, that is silly. I suppose the bushel standard really took hold when the Chicago Board of Trade took off. But as you might imagine, we really have to go by weight.

I have often thought of putting a cam on my dash when I'm doing my truck driving job, but I would have to cut the audio off. I do call them what they are loud and clear when they do that idiot stuff like coming on the get-on and hitting their brakes instead if putting the gas to the floor and get the he** outa the way. Thanks for the pics and the video...!

Looks like you had a busy and interesting year. I enjoyed the photos. I always enjoy seeing how things are in other parts of the country,and you get a better idea from photos such as this as compared to calendars and books.