Kind of funny planting story

I can laugh now. The milo is coming up (as long as it doesn't get drowned out).

This was the first year for the new-to-me JD 750 no till drill. It looked to be in good shape and had been taken care of. Heaven only knows he had over greased everything! I decided to use it to plant a 40 acre patch to test it out. 15 footer pulled with the 4440 with duals. I needed three headland passes to make the turns.

I took my three trips around and set my Visio to start at the west end. I got about 7 trips in and made my turn at the south end only to find a gauge wheel laying in the way. It had come off on the third headland pass. I stood there for about 15 minutes and thought about it. It didn't look like it was planting to China and the bolt and spacers were missing. I decided to just go for it.

Spent a few hours making my way east. I got to the farthest corner of the field, turned around, and found ANOTHER gauge wheel that I had lost on that third pass back in the beginning. I guess I didn't look at the front row of openers.

Anyone else have fun planting this year? Oh, and I checked all of those bolts the next morning.

2 key trouble words youmentioned ,,..deere bearings come from ... the land of almostrite ,,,CHINA ,,I wish you good luck , NO ONE AROUND HERE KEEPS A NEW DEER P;LANTER OVER 4YRS ,,, the durn things sqeek and sqauk and do a strip tease across thefield ,,, GLADYOU CAN SEE FUN IN THAT ,,, BUT IT WILL GET OLD ,,, GUESS HOW I KNOW

I think I would start by alluding to the size of your solid brass...(censored)...if you spent the money plant a 40 acre "test plot". Mine was a total of 7 acres and that was expensive enough.

Fun planting? Oh yeah! Been a hay guy for a long time now. Came into all these fields and rented them because I don't really care to do more hay than I do now. Then I got to thinking I could plant those fields myself so I usurped the smallest field from the tenant and snagged a cute little 8 row Cyclo at an auction and set about planting my test plot. Just getting it home was an experience as the PO had sold the end transport for scrap so I put this 23' planter endwise on my 18' car hauler with LOTS of cribbing and about 12 chains/binders. Took two loaders to put it on there and one huge loader to take it off...but you asked about planting.

Jump ahead six months...I have end transport and have pulled the thing 20 miles to the field. First I cannot get what the manual says I need for pressure...still can't and the manual is now under a short leg of the kitchen table where it actually serves a purpose. Decided to do a test run around the field Memorial weekend but how do I know it is planting?!? Got off and dug around in a couple furrows and found a few seeds...good enough. Oops...monitor is off! Took off again and the fool monitor tells me 4 of 8 rows are not planting. Stop again, scratch our heads, take it back to the yard, look it all over, put up lots of posts, ask lots of questions, call dealer, talk to PO...everyone is telling me to ignore the monitor, pressure is fine...plant the field. Rains during week so go out following Sunday. Eight perfect rows of corn growing along west and south edge of field...could have done the whole place last weekend!!! So I pull to where I left off and start going and look back and the drum is not turning. NOW we are on the edge of the woods and clouds of skeeters are coming at us. Crawled under there and gave the drive clutch a good soak with WD40, soaked the skeeters too, engaged the clutch, turned it with a wrench, gave it a healthy tap to seat it good and took off. Planted the whole field without more trouble. Just for fun I pulled it across the yard for about one swipe. Ground there is hard as cement but corn is coming up there too. Looking back I think I got a pretty nice planter but it was a trial getting that first field planted. I DID enjoy all the unnecessary tillage I did. Planter would have planted right thru the wheat stubble I guess but I don't get a lot of chances to pull 7 bottom plows or 25" disks or chisels. That part went fairly smoothly although I clearly need to practice with the plow. There is an art to plowing and I haven't mastered it yet. There is more but this is getting long so....