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what is or was your favorite farm job?

J

JD2ACWD

Member
chopping corn silage back in late 70's early 80's on my dad's farm with the john deere 3020 diesel and 1 row chopper,seemed like it took forever to chop 20 acres, those were the day's.
 
Mold board plowing at nite with a straight pipe .. the fire out the pipe was neat ...

ps.. couldn't get the ringing out of your ears for sometime...{ no cab }

Mark
 
Fall plowing at night. Exhaust manifold and muffler would turn cherry red, turn the lights off and all you could see was a red glowing mass coming towards you. The AM radio always came in better, you could pick up KAAY from Little Rock and WWL from New Orleans. Western Illinois, Mississippi river bottom gumbo, really made the tractors talk. Chris
 
My favorite Job since I was a teenager and opened up my first field has always been Spring Plowing. My least favorite is weeding those seemingly endless Vegetable Rows with a Hoe.
 
Chopping corn silage in the early 50's with a one row Gehl cutter with a 4 cyl flat head Continental engine and pulled by a WD and home built silage wagons. We might of had a total of 70 HP combined.
 
cutting, tedding, baling hay.

Raking not so much - did plenty of that when I was on my dad's farm. Now I let my son do it.
 
Anything that involves the smell of fresh cut or near fresh cut hay (mostly alfalfa, just smells sweet)
 
hauling silage/haylage wagons to and from the field with a 2640jd, (eastern wi) shifting through all the gears because i thought it was cool! now days its anything with my 2 year old daughter and 4 year old son.

casey in SD
 
I"m willing to take that up with my mirror image! Made a short post just to get in next to yours, but was too slow! Will be up to Milaca when the snow goes to pick up a "47 WC from Ron G., my good parts source. Need one cuz I can be legit and switch the front to a 3 bolt wide from a WD. First year they were available. Looked at a 48 near Rochester last week- wild goose chase for multiple reasons. 350 miles with trailer for nothing. Nice trip though- met another Green Beret veteran through this site and had a nice visit. Been "talking" for months.
 
Up in the barn hay loft with outside temps at 85-90 piling hay with bales of hay up the elavator one after another in central minn in the 50s and 60s
 
Filling the sileage bunks and scraping the yard with the skid steer after the morning milking (I was only 11, whadya expect? ;))

Barnyard Bill
 
Always liked cultivating corn. Anybody remember John Denver (Thank God I'm a Country Boy) Don't know how many times I heard that!
First was an 880 six row and then moved up to JD 4020 with Power Shift - sure was fun to see how fast you could go "laying by" corn.

Course always liked plowing as well.
Never will forget the time I hit a hard spot with 5 bottom behind a 4430 and the front wheels started raising pretty good - till I pulled the lever just a bit.

Guess that's why I go antique tractor pulling now

Jim
 
Hauling wheat from the combine to the bin. I could always get some reading done while dad was combining and I was sitting in the truck.
 
mine is chopping or combining. i dont know why but i just love chopping! it dont matter if its corn or hay but i love it. my second favorite is combining corn. again dont know why but i just love it!
M Puller
 
Chisel plowing with a Case IH 535 Steiger and 21 shank chisel plow. Heated leather seats and HID lighting. Its a big step from the first tractor I started chiseling with- 1466 IH with a 9 shank.
 
One of the best and easiest is cutting hay with a discbine (super invention) will always remember the NH haybine and before that the NI sickle mower. First crop clover hay was always a pain in A. New discbines cut thru almost anything.
 
After it is cured some time around the first of November you take it down out of the barn, take it off the stick, and pull the leaves off the stalk in grades. When I was a kid we striped in the barn, granddad would make a fire out side the door and I guess he thought looking at it would make you feel warmer I don't know. It was cold, dark, and hard work. When I bought my house it came with a "hired help" shack has electricity and is insulated. Seeing as how I don't need a "hired help" shack, I use it to strip tobacco in the winter. No matter how cold it gets two "Mr Heater" propane jobs keep it nice and toasty, we have a radio and lights. Makes the chore much more pleasant.

Dave
 
definitely mold board plowing watching that cherry red muffler shooting sparks. That ole 4020 handled 5-14th's pretty easy until my grandfather told me to "put that thing in the ground kid". Then the night sky would fill with sparks coming out of that muffler
 
Yes there is something about looking over your shoulder at cultivated tobacco that just makes every thing feel right with the world. Some folks around here are going to no till baccer, I told some one last summer I wouldn't rase it if I couldn't pull a cultivator through it.

Dave
 
Plowing with a John Deere 4850 and 7 bottom variable width plow. Nobody to tell me I'm doing it wrong. Just me and Classic Country from Rice Lake Wi. Heater in the morning AC at midday and back to the heater in late afternoon. Changing all the shares/points once or twice a week for about 3 weeks in the spring and more in the fall. Plowed right up til Christmas one year.
 
JD2ACWD, I guess I would have to shoveling
2h^t. I have cleaned so many horse stalls, and cleaned behind cows, and cleaned out hen houses, that I dont mind it. Besides I know the manure is going out to help better the soil. And spreading it with the manure spreader is fun. I mean you get to see the fields and surondings you worked during the summer, in there winter look. If that makes any sense! J
 
Riding in the wagon while my dad picked ear corn.
One row Woods-brothers picker and a JD B.
60 years ago and can still smell the fresh picked ear corn. No radio or cab just M nature.
All was good.
 
Loading the wagon when baling small squares. Better even than driving the tractor. Second choice, plowing at night, no radio, AC, heater, just you and your thoughts.
Paul
 
Opening a cornfield with a '37 JD model A burdened with a two row mounted picker. Old girl had all it could do in low gear, pretty interesting watching dust turn to sparks on the cherry red manifold. Too durn close to gas tank for comfort. But standing up, this kid was king of everything in sight. I can smell and hear it all to this day. Leo
 
I would have to say picking ear corn, in good weather of course. I can still smell the fresh picked corn, someone should put that in a bottle and sell it.
Brian(MN)
 
I can't think of a favorite. growing up on the farm in the 50's I didn't care for much anything. But as I think back this would be a favorite. I would go with Dad when he cut the bean head rows in the evening so the beans wouldn't shell out as bad. As he cut the rows My brother and myself, and the hired man would put the beans in rows with a fork out of the way so when Dad cut the fiels at night he could turn around. We would work until dark and all hang on the F 12 and head back home. In my mind, I can still hear the sound of the old farmall with hardly no ex. pipe. I guess just being with Dad made it a favorite. O the memories. stan
 
Coming home from school and finding boxes and boxes of baby chicks on the porch delivered by the mailman.
Fresh bedding, cool water, feed, heat lamps and turn them loose. It was fun and exciting to get them going the first day but it was certainly all downhill and misery from there on.
 
My favorite farm job was selling 2 loads of fat hogs before Sunday Morning Service for $58 per hundred weight many years ago.
If that doesn't count than I will go with square baling with the IH 37 (if everything is working right.)
 
I can tell no one is going to beleive my favorite farm job was milking cows. I did it for a good many years. Started by hand at eight years old, then to a double unit Mc Cormik then to a swinging four parlor ended up with a flat tie stall with pipe-line. I alway liked to go into the tie stall first thing in the morning and see the old girls get up, and get ready to be milked. Never got started on those early miling hour. It was six and six. Mother set those times. We would milk in the morning and then eat breakfast. Eat supper and then milk She could sleep in a little and she had the dishes done when we came in from evening milking. The family could spend the evening together. Never tolorated a kicker they always went to the sale barn fast.
gitrib
 
Some will say its sappy, but it would be anything, if my father was still alive, an i was doin it with him.
if it was with equipment i would say it was disking bean stubble or plowing with our 4630.
now adays it isnt near as much fun but plowing with my 70 or 80 diesels isnt to bad.
johndeeregene
 
Driving the 1030 Case CK when plowing, running any of our combines during harvest, driving the grain truck from feild to feild, (I didnt have my licence yet, and Dad was afraid I tear something up if I drove the combine, I was only 12 or 13)
 
Planting cowpeas, not that there was anything great about broad casting them then discing them in but that was always the last thing we did in the summer before we went on our family vacation. Nobody complaining everybody working as hard and fast as they could.
Ron
 
That is a tough question for me to answer, cause as the seasons change the jobs in the field change and the next job becomes my favorite .But on any day I guess I have side with gitrib, I still after nearly 30 years love doing the milking the best, I have got sick of plowing or cutting hay, and chopping corn after a few hours ,but the cows are alive and respond to touch sound time of day. They need to eat , and need to rest just like me , but a tractor just will just keep on going long past the time I want to ride it.
 
Hello James,

My farm in Mn. is bout ten miles from Milaca,
and I know Ron G. he is the best on mags!, he even has a mustang skid loader that he put Ac decals on!

Will
 
I was a kid and never DID any of it, other than cultivating, which I hated. My two favorite times of year were chopping corn silage (just love the smell of freshly chopped corn) and combining wheat.

For wheat, Dad used a McCormick Super W6 pulling an Allis Allcrop with a bagging platform. I'd ride on the platform and "conduct test samples" of the wheat.

Corn chopping was hired out, Feller had a JD 70 Diesel, biggest dang tractor I'd ever seen. The SW6 would run the blower, and if the feller unloading the wagons got a little heavy-handed, that ol' Six would do some bellering!
 
Had to be planting corn or drilling in small grains.Int 56 4 row planter with a super H pulling. About the most economical combination Ive ever planted with. Only depressing thing was haying was right around the corner
 
I enjoyed almost anything to do with a tractor. Threshing the oats was a favorite. We had a threshing ring where the neighbors would work together and do each farm. In the final years of threshing my dad had a RED River Special machine and I would enjoy leveling up the machine, greasing and oiling everything and installing all of the belts. We ran it with a DC Case. I was younger and drove the tractors for the guys loading the bundles and we had fun seeing who could get the largest load or load the fastest, plus we would sometimes race the tractors with the empty wagons when we were out of sight. Then there was also fun on the other end filling the grain sacks and hauling them to the granary. Sometimes they would have to carry the sacks up the steps to the bins in the second floor of the granary. At the end of the day there would be some beer and a wonderful meal. I guess that we had a lot of energy back then.
 
(quoted from post at 18:54:53 02/23/10) chopping corn silage back in late 70's early 80's on my dad's farm with the john deere 3020 diesel and 1 row chopper,seemed like it took forever to chop 20 acres, those were the day's.
Click to expand...

Running a 60 foot springtooth harrow....
 
I'd probably agree with the cutting silage; it was my dad's operation and we used a 4020 and a 2-row A-C cutter (a 760 or a 780, I dis-remember). It was a cut-and-throw machine and the 'moan' it made could be heard all through the community. The silage went into a trench silo (the pit) and the trailers weren't that big, about 7 x 14 x 4 1/2 ft tall. If everything was working right, we cut as many as 8 loads per hour. Had a man to ride the back of the machine/front of the trailers. I'd motion, he'd pull the pin, I'd drive forward a few feet while adjusting the the chute to keep the silage in the trailer, I'd stop and the fellow hauling would whip the next trailer in behind the cutter. The guy doing the hitching/unhitching would pull the pin; tractor would pull out of the way and I'd back in for him to hitch up the empty trailer. Fellow hauling would do his own hitching up. Depending on how far the field was from the pit, there would be 1, 2, or 3 'haulers'. Trailers had false front endgates to pull the silage out at the pit; 2 or 3 guys at the pit, 1 tractor driver to pull the silage out and 'pack' and the other to hook onto the false endgate and put it back into the trailer after it was unloaded. The dust in the field roads would be as fine as flour and 6 inches deep. A load every 7 1/2 or 8 minutes; I loved it. We did a lot of custom cutting within the county and filled 10 or 12 pits or silos each year. New highway got our pit about 25 or 30 years ago and we went to an all-hay operation, instead of silage.
 
Thurlow you were gettin it done! I helped neighbors from time to time. One day I was pushing the dump wagon in a muddy field for them. About three O'clock one of them says, "Six loads today! best day in a long time, time to quit" I thought with some help they might at least finish that field, but no, it was time for rest.
 
It was a lot of fun; our first cutter was a one-row (model 50??) pulled with a WD. Got $7.00 per hour for the tractor, cutter, driver (my dad) and one or two trailers. Eventually went to a per-ton price and we 'did' the whole operation; I can't remember what we were getting at the last, maybe $3.00 per ton. We weighed 3 or 4 trailers per day and every time we changed fields.....whatever it took to satisfy the customer; they all weighed within 100 lbs of each other.......about 7000 lbs per load.
 
I like planting corn. It's usually fairly nice weather and I use an open station tractor for that job. And, part of the reason, is that planting holds the promise of another crop!
 
Cutting cotton stalks after picking was done. Smooth row centers lets you haul butt and no matter if you wander off rows. Paul
 
When given a choice between the barn and the field, I usually choose the barn. I like the contact with the animals. I like milking in a tie-stall. I dislike anything there is to do with a silo or silo unloader, especially if it's haylage. I enjoy all aspects of haymaking probably because I only do a couple thousand small squares each year. As kids, we used to do 12-14 thousand bales at my uncles place. That would get a little monotonous by summer's end. His son quickly adopted the use of round bales (wrapped and dry) once he took over the reins.
 
Grew up on a farm. Liked field work, hated the livestock. I would take a beating before I would milk them stupid cows. At 18 years of age, I set out on my own, ended up on construction jobs. After a year or two of labor jobs I landed a seat on a dozer. I knew then I found what I was cut out to do the rest of my life. Retired last spring I was a heavy equipment operator for over 40 years. Life was a good run for me.
 
Anything to do with harvest...nothing like watching a field get cleaned up. Kinda like getting a shave and a haircut!
 
Plowing with any Red tractor.
You can always see where you have been and that u did something! No doubt about that!

Joe
 
Hi Johnny: I also felt the same way about COWS and most other livestock. I'd rather cultivate 200 acres with a two row small tractor THREE times then milk cows... and that was late '40's and '50's . Still like tractors and dis-like cows. ag
 
Never was very fond of milking, but didn't have to do too much of it, as dad sold the cows when I was 13. I worked for a neighbor for the 4 summers of high school- '62 through '65. Changed a lot of irrigation hand line, put up a lot of hay. I liked changing irrigation- did it barefoot (cool wet grass, but watch out for bees!), with the water running (so pipes didn't fall over, and you didn't have to wait for lines to fill when done). I carried a little transistor radio, and listened to rock and roll. Remember hearing the Beatles for the first time, and thought they were great, but what a stupid name (thought is was "Beetles" at the time). Good memories.
 
Not kidding, though, I do like the smell of dry cow manure in the summer- reminds me of when we had the dairy. Especially with a little silage odor hanging in the air with it. City folks think I'm nuts.
 
Grew up in the city, but spent a lot of time on the farm. It's been MANY years since I was "on the farm" and there were many favorites and many not so favorites. I always like combine season. Enjoyed harvesting wheat, oats, milo, and the smell of the air at night. Another favorite is haying season and the smell of good mown hay. And the fall, when plowing out stalks and getting the land up for the winter. Something about the cool weather after that hot summer and turning the stalks under.

Alot of good memories. I'm hoping after retirement to get a small acreage. I know I'll never be able to farm or afford to have a place of any size, but if I can have a large garden, a few calves, and a place to tinker with some old iron then things won't be too bad.
 
i enjoyed reading all the posts below. I have a couple favorites. I guess my favorite is discing a field that was just plowed. I diced with the MF 1080 right after the field had been plowed. Man I had to hold on! I also love baling hay with the 1080 and then raking hay with the ollie 1655. No radio! Just the sound of the sweet engine (perkins 318 or Waukehsau 283)
Cant beat the sound of it if you ask me and you cant bea the smell of alfalfa hay that was just cut!
 
Used to go through the barns at 11 pm to make sure all was well and tried to make a game out of it with a little flashlight to see if I could sneak past 700 sleeping hogs.
 
Grinding feed. Don't know why, but have always enjoyed the task.

Also getting bottle-fed calves to drink from a pail for the first time (without tipping it over!) That always seems like a major accomplishment to me.
 
Sugar beet lift in the late 1050's; we had a IH H1-M 1 single row (22" rows) beet topper on a Farmall M and later a Farmall 400. 35-40 acres took 3 weeks to a month to harvest. Our trucks were 1.5 ton Fords (1941 & 1947) with side dump boxes which were tipped with a cable lift at the beet piler. If the load was 22,000# or so this was quite a task for the old trucks!
As a teenager that was a lot of fun helping Dad.
 
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