Rain
All is well here in Kentucky. Wow the skies have finally opened up! I am glad to see it even if it does mean the contractors will be delayed in the building of the poultry houses. We need about 2 weeks of this steady rain, but I’ll settle for the 5 days that are forecasted. I had almost forgotten the sound of the rain on the metal roof. Sure is some good sleeping weather. If only I had time to sleep!
I decided to sell a few of the horses so we could concentrate on our best horses and keeping them ridden. It’s sad to see them go, but I just don’t have the time for them all. I really would like to turn away from horses and more toward cattle or goats. I really enjoy the goats. I have some great places for them too! On the other hand cattle are a lot easier to deal with and it’s hard not to like calves. I geuss we’ll try to get more of both!
The leaves are gradually falling from the trees and the nights are beginning to have a chill. Highs aren’t getting into the 80’s much now and the 90’s are gone. Soon it will be time to light a fire and have cocoa with the kids by the stove. I have a basement full of projects that will need my attention this winter. I’m unsure of whether to sew grass seed in the clearings this fall or wait for spring.
The rain has kept the 6000 on the sidelines, but my mind has been racing about buying that 7010 cab I’ve been kicking around for over a year now. I’m in a better position to buy now and may just do that if the deal is right. Sure would make winter feeding a lot more fun inside that comfy heated cab.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Glad to hear things are good there and you are finally getting rain. This drought has been worrisome to say the least.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I think they created a new category for this drought. I have never seen it this dry. Don’t think this rain is going to end the drought, but it is a step in the right direction. Thanks for the comment!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Hi Joel,
I wish that I could send some of our Ohio rain your way. It’s funny, that it is a 3 hour drive to KY, but the weather is so different. Glad to hear that you are at least getting a little relief.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Hi Joel!
We’ve been getting some much needed rain here too, fortunately we are just on the edge of the area considered to be short on rainfall.
I fully understand what you are saying about the horses; they are a lot of fun to ride and be around, but they are a committment of time, space and feed on a farm. Unfortunately that is why you see so many good horses being sold cheap; the owner’s get them, not understanding what all is involved, and after a few months of being “pasture ornaments” they become unruly critters that only the Devil can love.
I remember a couple who were good friends of my family when I was a kid. Vernie and Merle got married back during the depression and rented a farm close to here, they stayed there most of thier lives. Even in to the 1970’s and ’80’s they would toss hay by hand to thier cattle, and feed ear corn to the hogs. Merle, the wife, slipped and fell several times on the tongue of the wagon because of muddy or wet boots. I know she would have enjoyed the comfort of a heated 7010w/cab to do her chores, and the air conditioning would have eased Vernie’s emphysemia during the last years that he farmed. Vernie passed away many years ago and Merle moved off of the farm, and lives in town with her sister. It is almost amazing to think of a couple renting and farming the same place from the time they got married until a few years after the husband’s death, close to 60 years total. Just think how much easier thier lives would have been with some of the equipment we have today.
Kevin
October 26th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Melissa,
We’d sure take some that rain, but let’s hold off until we can get some poultry houses under roof. You’re right about the difference a 3 hour drive will make. My parents have a place in Owen county Ky and I always said it’s atleast 10 degrees cooler there all the time. I think a lot of it has to do with the mountains around me. They block the wind and seem to direct the wet weather away from me. Thanks for reading!
Kevin,
Glad to hear you’re getting some rain too. I don’t think even I understood how much work horses are. Not only that, but they destroy pasture if you don’t rotate them regularly. They sure are some strange eaters. I think right now horses are so cheap because “killers” aren’t being processed like they used to be. I’m not going to weigh in on the morality of slaughtering horses, but it seems that when they were killing more here the devils all went to the processor while good horses stayed in the market. That kept the price of good horses up where it needs to be. Those depression era folks were a different breed. Seems they’d been through so much that just a little of anything was enough to make them happy. I sure wish Merle could have stayed on the farm, she’d probably been happier. Hopefully she still got to visit the farm. Thanks for the comment!
October 26th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Joel,
You’re right about the “older” farmers being a different breed. Vernie was missing the ends of a couple of fingers because of getting them caught in machinery (farming can still be dangerous, but not like it was even 30 years ago.) I remember us (Vernie, my dad and I) repairing the rear end in his International pick up truck. We needed a spacer plate, but since we were ten miles out of town, and the nearest IH dealer was 25 miles away, we took some sheet metal off of an old Allis model 66 combine and made one! Mixing of Allis Orange, and IH Red didn’t seem to affect the truck too bad. Vernie drove it for several more years before selling it to his nephew, who restored it.
Merle, who is in her 90’s gets around fairly well, and has gotten to visit the old place. She says that the current owners have done a nice job remodeling the old house, something the owners they were renting from never did, but that she doesn’t like to visit much because of all of the memories she has of all the years she and Vernie lived there. She probably wouldn’t have moved into town if her old dogs hadn’t died, and it wasn’t so hard on her to take care of things around the place.
Kevin
October 26th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Kevin,
I\’ve heard a lot of horror stories about farming being so dangerous. I even have one of my own. When the 6000 was brand new Garett wanted to go for a ride on it so I set him up on the fender and took him into the pasture. We hit a bump and he fell off. We\’re still not sure exactly what happened, but he ended up with a broken leg out of the deal.
Folks sure used to be a lot more resourceful years ago. I think technology is spoiling us all.
I drove by an old Allis Chalmers dealership today. Always wondered what exactly happened to the brand. Noone in my family had one. Next time I\’m going to snap a picture of the sign just for a keepsake.
I geuss I can understand Vern and the memories. Up until just a couple years ago we had a next door neighbor that was actually a little related to us. She must have been suffering from dimensia near the end. One day we came home and inside our front door was a bag of dresses. BJ dug through them and determined they belonged to the neighbor Mertle. She had left them for my grandmother who lived in our house previously. We called her son and he came to get them. He explained she was having a bad day. She had jumped on to him for not going to school and he\’s in his 50s. She also was looking for her husband who had been dead several years. Her son said she was just having a bad day. After he left BJ noticed I was holding back the tears. I just told her maybe that day was a good day. Afterall in her mind she still had her sons at home and her husband was still here with her.
Thanks for the comment!
October 26th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Fariming is rough and you gotta be tough saw your blog on here. Ive been farming ever since i was 13 years old rasin tobbacco and cows. I have a 4243 and a few other fergusons, Looks like your clearin that place off. I bought a cheap dozer last year to clean up some of my land. I run about a thousand acres here in kentucky. Just thought i would say hi and wish you good luck with the weather. I no this rain has been a blessing on us all. Now if I can just get the rest of my late hay cut it would be nice.
October 27th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Russ,
Sounds like you’ve been farming a while. Are you still in tobacco even without the price support system? We’ve cleared about 30 more acres and fixin to try to get some grass growing on it. Dozers clear a lot of ground, but you lose so much topsoil unless you get a root rake. We talked about buying a used dozer to clear what we just had cleared, but then a friend of the family started his own excavating business so we just used him. Turned out pretty good. There were a lot of stumps around that would have really worked a dozer getting them out. A thousand acres is a lot of ground. Hopefully I can add a few acres as time goes on to my operation. I got a feeling these chickenhouses are going to keep me pretty busy though. I may have more than I can handle already. Good luck with the rest of your hay and thanks for the comment!
October 28th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Joel,
The old Allis Chalmers corp, and possibly the New Idea equipment line too, got bought out by a conglomerate. The parent corportion produced tractors and equipment under the Duetz-Allis name for a few years and then changed over to Agco-Allis. There are a number of Agco dealers around in this area, but not like there was. I think Agco also bought Oliver and White as well.
I had lunch with my brother, sister in law and one of my brother’s friends and his wife. The friends uncle used to be the Allis Chalmers dealer here for many years. The friend still has an Allis Chalmers model G, with all the implements, that his father bought new. (The little devil still runs, and George still uses it some, although his son in law has larger tractors for field use.)
Kevin
October 28th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Kevin,
Very interesting, I always thought they ended up part of Agco. Just wasn’t sure how or under what circumstances. Agco seems to have some brands still in the shed that used to be household names. Who knows maybe they’ll bring them back someday like Case IH did with the Farmall. It would be nifty to see. Deutz makes some reaaly nice Ag tractors that ru forever, but they cost as much as a fancy foreign sportscar. New I dea is still kickin they are just rebranded Masset Ferguson’s from what I’ve seen.