The old and the young

[Mobuck]

Yesterday when I took a load soybeans to town, I was talking with the young man at the dump pit. I've known his Dad and Grandpa for many years. In the conversation we got into how things were done "in the OLD days". I commented about how things went faster back when the beans were simply dumped and went straight into rail cars. He said he couldn't remember that. Then I told him how we used to dump at the old ASCS grain storage bins north of town. He'd never heard of that.
Finally, he said he was only 25 so all those things were ancient history for him. Twenty five?? Geez I took a hiatus from row cropping when he was still wetting his pants.
For sure, there are lots of farmers considerably older than I but the herd is decreasing rapidly. It's tougher to adapt to the new technology in equipment, seed, and crop protection for us older guys. I likely wouldn't have returned to row crops if not for Tom's desire to be involved. He's the technology component and I'm more the nuts and bolts component. MOST of the time, this works good enough although he still doesn't have a handle on just how many hours are involved in some of the more menial tasks.

 

[Mega Twin]

I'm in North East Arkansas,having moved here 2 years ago from NW Arkansas,and the terrain and farming methods are a big flip flop difference. Some of theses machines are HUGE.
Just one question,soy beans for instance,how does the machine separate the beans from the rest of the plant?

 

[pete44ru]

Just one question,soy beans for instance,how does the machine separate the beans from the rest of the plant?

Combines are the harvesting machines of choice for soybeans and other grains including corn and wheat.
The header on the front of the combine cuts and collects the soybean plants.
The combine separates the soybeans from their pods and stems, and collects the soybeans into a holding tank in the back of the combine.


.

 

[coach]

Technology has changed everything. I started drafting with pencil on paper then progressed to essentially the same thing with computers and eventually creating 3D models of buildings on a computer.

 

[wolfsong]

I was raised on a cattle ranch and moved on to other ventures as a young man, but I never forgot just how much work, time and commitment goes into ranching.

Now, in the declining years of life, here I am, back on a cattle ranch as a limited partner, albeit a much smaller concern. You'd think I would know better.

Whether it's a few thousand head of range cattle back then or a small feedlot for local dairies and a pasture herd of 40 now, the amount of work, time and commitment is much the same. And then there is the horses...and the machinery, and the weather, and the water, and...

Some things are impervious to technology and change.

 

[turd]

My hat is off to you guys, and anyone else that essentially depends only on themselves and the rainfall to make a living. Most of us work for someone/something else. I grew up in town, but almost all my relatives were farmers. Many of my college friends were, too. I have spent many hours walking bean fields pulling weeds, loading bales of hay onto wagons, feeding animals, fixing fence, etc. It is hard work. But, it is satisfying work as well, you can see/know what you have done each day.

 

[Don Lovel]

When I visit my folks and drive past the old Gleaner combines hiding in the weeds and remember when that group of 6 -18' grain header Gleaners cut most of the wheat in that section of Oklahoma for many years. This time of year I would be at the mill sacking mung beans after school.

 

[Critch]

I grew up in the Ozarks, my farming was mostly chasing hogs and cattle around the woods. I live here in Poplar Bluff now and watching the big farms around here operate is amazing to me, and I'm 64 years old. One of my neighbors lets me ride in the combine during harvest season and I've ridden once when planting, it's amazing.

The was a lot more cotton hereabouts when I was a kid and a young man, I have to go further east towards Sikeston to see it now...and down into NE Arkansas...

I was a commodity broker for 10 years (1980-1989) and that's where my interest in this type of massive farming really got started...my dad's people raised cotton down in Tennessee, but he told me it was never a big operation for them until the mechanical gleaners as he called them became common. Prior to the gleaners it was a labor intensive endeavor..everyone in the family planted and picked cotton.

 

[Bob Wright]

Technology has changed everything. I started drafting with pencil on paper then progressed to essentially the same thing with computers and eventually creating 3D models of buildings on a computer.

Hello, Brother! My story exactly! On Fridays we used to mail out huge bundles of drawings to bidders, with hundreds of dollars in postage. When I retired, we clicked "send" and drawings flew through cyberspace to intended bidders! Worked in "model space" and "paper space" and found many new buzz words.

With all modesty, my hand drawn drawings were far more understandable than computer generated drawings, and one client actually preferred my drawings over computer drawings.

Bob Wright

 

[Bob Wright]

Yesterday when I took a load soybeans to town, I was talking with the young man at the dump pit. I've known his Dad and Grandpa for many years. In the conversation we got into how things were done "in the OLD days". I commented about how things went faster back when the beans were simply dumped and went straight into rail cars. He said he couldn't remember that. Then I told him how we used to dump at the old ASCS grain storage bins north of town. He'd never heard of that.
Finally, he said he was only 25 so all those things were ancient history for him. Twenty five?? Geez I took a hiatus from row cropping when he was still wetting his pants.
For sure, there are lots of farmers considerably older than I but the herd is decreasing rapidly. It's tougher to adapt to the new technology in equipment, seed, and crop protection for us older guys. I likely wouldn't have returned to row crops if not for Tom's desire to be involved. He's the technology component and I'm more the nuts and bolts component. MOST of the time, this works good enough although he still doesn't have a handle on just how many hours are involved in some of the more menial tasks.

During most of my working years I was around grain elevators in our area. I was at an elevator in Caruthersville, Mo. while they were receiving soybeans. Now up there they put salt on the roads in the winter time. This tractor trailer rig pulled onto the dump deck and the barrier went up behind the rear wheels and the dumper began to raise. Suddenly the trailer bed slid off the chassis and slid through the doors of the dump building and came to rest some distance past the receiving building. The salt had eaten away the supports that connected the trailer bed to the frame.

Since that time the barrier blocked the rear end of the trailer bed itself.

I still stop and observe grain elevators whenever I drive by. But now it seems most truckers have hopper bottom trailers that don't require being raised by the dumpers. A shame, to me, as watching those dumper work was like watching a jet airliner land or take off. Just one of those marvels that always catch my attention!

Bob Wright

 

[Bob Wright]

And, speaking of bygone eras and grain elevators, one of my first job sites to visit, ca. 1976, was in Pascagoula, Mississippi. This elevator had a rail receiving building equipped to receive grain from boxcars. The dumper picked up a boxcar by the couplers, rotated it onto its side to allow grain to flow out through the open doors. Then it gently shook the car back and forth to get all the grain out of the ends of the car, then rotated the car upright and set it back on the tracks. It was one huge hunk of steel!

I also had to climb up to the roof of the headhouse and determine where and how big of a hole we could break in the roof. We were to lower parts of a steel hopper through the roof, using a helicopter.

Sometimes I really miss working!

Bob Wright

 

[bogus bill]

That reminds me of one of the dirtiest details I ever had when I worked in a foundry back in 1959. There was sort of a conveyor belt that went up through the roof with ashs and coal dust. You could barely see your hand in front of your face for all the coal dust etc. Had to go up the contraption and unclog it. At the end of the shift you could see only the whites of your eyes. We had showers and you would change your cloths before you went home. I would blow black liquorish all the time. I was eighteen but made good money while I was there. Wisconsin was hot and muggy in the summer and the foundry was so hot you could barely breath. I worked graveyard and in winter would be all sweated up and had to run wheelbarrows of dirt outside in the snow to dump them and it might be -30 below! Sure miss that job. NOT! You know I barely recalled working there until I just posted about it!
My shift was odd. 8 pm to 4:30 am. Driving to work you would see everyone else was just sitting down to enjoy picking their teeth after supper and in winter at the end of your shift we would be shoveling out our cars out of snow banks to go home at 04:30 A.M.

 

[Ray Newman]

My parents were the first generation to leave the family farms back about 1933.

Growing up in the 1950's-60's, my brother and were farm help. Fast forward to 2000-2001 when I reached the Federal civil service retirement and a few of my coworkers said I "must have seen a lot." Conversation got around to driving and they asked what I first drove. I thought for a minute and replied: "Belgians and Percherons." They asked what kind of vehicle was that and I said: "horses -- I drove the teams while the wagons were loaded as I was too young really work the hay fields, etc., but could drive the team." They looked at me like I was from another planet.

 

[Mobuck]

" I thought for a minute and replied: "Belgians and Percherons." They asked what kind of vehicle was that and I said: "horses -- I drove the teams while the wagons were loaded as I was too young really work the hay fields, etc., but could drive the team." They looked at me like I was from another planet."

I suspect I'm one a the dwindling few who have spanned the transition from work horses to autonomous (robotic) farming. I drove a team to pick up hay and shuck corn as a kid and just weeks ago drove a tracked tractor that would drive itself from borrow pit to the dirt berm we were building and then back to the borrow pit. All I had to do was run the controls while loading/unloading the scraper.

 

[Bob Wright]

My wife's grandfather kept a pair of Belgians long after they were any use. Just for sentimental reasons.

Not too many years ago I rode a Percheron down in Corpus Christi, Texas. When you're ridden one of those, you know you've been on a horse!

Bob Wright