WHEN CITY SLICKERS FARM

There are a few basic things a farmer needs in equipment. There are also a few things a farmer needs to know and understand about their equipment.  I am a city slicker turn farmer.  Basically, I am pretty clueless.  I hate to admit it but it is true.  I just happen to have an excellent, (sadly) example.

October for farmers is a busy time.  Actually farmers are busy all the time, in October we are either busy getting in the last hay cutting and baling or working the soil and prepping it to plant our winter crop. 

One of my neighbors was kind enough to stop by and disc my soil for me. In other words, he turned the soil over, like using a very large rotor tiller, and pretty much got rid of the weeds.  This gets the soil ready for planting. 

My tractor has been laid up sick for a year.  We finally decided to bite the bullet, sort of speak, and called Eric. He repairs tractors, especially International tractors, which is what we own.  He came out and gave us an idea of the cost to fix the clutch…..roughly a couple of $2,000.00 give or take.  Reason being: there is a loader on the front of the tractor. The loader is a big shovel that goes up and down hydraulically. In the picture below, the loader is the big scoop shovel in front of the tractor.

The loader needs to be removed, and then break the tractor in half to get to the clutch. A lot of time involved in this process.  His rates are fair.  We knew he would do a great job.

We decided to go for it.  We do not have a trailer wide enough to haul this tractor to his shop.  He did. He offered to go get his.  Before he left to get his trailer, he looked the tractor over and right then and there he played with the clutch and adjusted it.  Well, doggone thing fired up and was drivable again!  Cost me a whole $60.00.

Eric told us to just drive it until the clutch goes out completely.  No problem for me!  Now he also warned me not to use the clutch heavily.  I understood.   I am back in the farming business again!!!

This is a picture of Eric’s business card.  If you need some work done or want him to give you an estimate, give him a call.  He is reasonably priced and takes pride in his work.  He has been repairing tractors for 35 years and is IH (International Harvester) certified.  I recommend him highly!

Alright that was some of the back story on the tractor. Here is a little back story on the planting. My first year of planting my neighbor came down after I got the fields ready and planted for me.   That spring I planted again and used another neighbors equipment to plant.  We did this for a couple of years. 

The one piece of equipment I lacked, actually I lack a few pieces of equipment, to plant a crop is called a drill.  What I use to call a “plant seeder.”  You know the machine you use to plant seed?, I said to the locals.  The locals just look at you like your forehead is a flashing neon sign flashing, “city slicker.” They slowly smile this big grin, containing their laughter, and very politely point out that it is called a grain drill or just drill.  What? A drill? Why?  Very simple really. The seed is drilled into the ground.  “Oh....,” says the city slicker.

I bought an old drill that my neighbor was no longer using. It needed some work before I could use it.  He always tells us what is wrong and the conditon.  Well, it is still sitting where my husband parked it. Still needs some fixing up before I can use it. Here are pictures of the drill when we brought it home. 

 Now my husband wants to rebuild this old drill. It has rust everywhere. He wants to strip it apart, clean and paint it.  It is a John Deere drill. They are green and yellow. I just wanted to use it. Not really caring about rust, but he is my mechanic and I am going along with him.

A farmer friend (I thought), said he had a drill that was ready to use…..neon sign, "city slicker," flashing again.  Come to find out this drill was far, far from ready to plant.  My poor husband worked three days plus three late nights, with the aid of shop lights, sitting on the ground getting this drill ready to use.  Not only that, but he also had to drain the diesel, oil and hydraulic fluids out of the tractor, since it sat for a year.  He had to replace the fuel filters, blow the diesel lines clear, grease the tractor and generally get it ready to use. Okay, this is the year I use my own equipment!  So exciting!

Here is a picture of the "ready to use" drill. Now my husband robbed the other drill blind of parts to get this one ready to work. 

Meanwhile, I am watching the weather reports.  I am looking at the extended forecasts for rain.  I was also researching what crop I wanted to plant.  Once I decided on the crop, I needed to figure out how many pounds of seed per acre were needed.  Of course, once that is figured out, I needed to check the feed stores for availability. 

Now you want to plant seed that will grow in your climate.  Otherwise you will pay a great deal of money to plant and end up with no crop.  

My husband is working to get the tractor and drill ready to go.  He figured a few days, but it turned into a week and a few days.  As he was finishing up, I was off to the feed store to purchase seed.

I decided this year to try a cover crop.  What is a cover crop, you ask?  A cover crop is used mostly by the mid west farmers in the winter.  Why?  Good question.  Farming in the mid west is done in the spring/summer.  After their harvest in the fall, some plant what they call a cover crop of rye grass, legumes and clover.  Now these plants put nitrogen back in the soil.  Also the root system of rye and clover break up or loosen the soil.  This is a good thing.  So the soil is getting rest and nutrition from these plants.  Most mid west farmers plow this crop into the ground come early spring. Why? It is called “green manure.”  The crop is turned into the soil to break down and give more nutrients back to the soil.  The soil is ready for corn or soy.  This is a good way to farm without using pesticides and fertilizers. Also a very good thing.

I decided my cover crop would be Rye grass and Clover.  I chose this cover crop for two reasons: to beef up my soil, cut it, bale it and sell it. It makes good feed hay. I checked the feed store I shop at.  They had Rye grass seed.  It came in 50lb bags and cost $25.00 a bag.  They also had Red Clover in 50lb bags that cost $74.00 a bag (ouch!).  Okay, since I was mixing clover with the rye, I did not need as much seed. I needed 20lbs an acre of rye for our 15 acres.  I needed a total of 300 lbs of rye grass seed.  That equals 6 bags of seed.  I purchased 8 bags of Rye grass.  I know, why?

Because I have soil that is called “gumbo.” When this soil gets wet, it is like gumbo. You step on it and grow a foot to three feet taller.  You can also get stuck in it or lose a shoe or two.  Very nasty stuff.  The gumbo dirt does not come off the bottom of your shoes easily and if you let it dry before cleaning your shoes off, it is even harder to remove.  It is a rocky, clay nasty soil.  Basically it is poor soil.  Since it is poor soil, I usually over plant what is called for.  Thus, the 8 bags of Rye Grass instead of 6. 

                    This is what the rye seed looks like that I planted, very small.

The clover is the same way.  I was planting a mix and only needed 8 to 10 lbs an acre.  I purchased 4, 50lb bags of clover seed.  While I was waiting my turn at the check out, I noticed bags of Austrian Winter Peas.  Hmmmmm….I wonder if I could mix these with my Rye and Clover?????  When I got home I did some internet research and YEP, I sure can!  I needed 225 lbs of peas for my 15 acres. That is 4 ½ bags. 

                                         This is the clover. A VERY tiny seed.


So the next day back to the feed store and pick up 10 bags of Winter peas. I only needed 5 bags.  The cost $30.00 a 50lb bag.  The peas are also inoculated (starter) for me.  Why so many peas? I planned to plant some of the peas in an area for the critters to enjoy so the extra bags. 

This is Austrian Winter Peas.  They are bigger than clover and rye.  Pea size.

Alright, now I have my cover crop seeds and I am ready to go.  Next step: What to plant first.  The winter peas are planted 1 inch deep. The rye and clover are planted ½ inch deep.  No brainer, I will plant the winter peas first then the rye and clover.  I love a plan!

Recap: The mix of seed goes like this; rye grass 20lbs an acre, clover 8 to 10 lbs an acre and winter peas 15 to 20lbs per acre.   I had 400lbs of rye grass, 200lbs clover and 500lbs of winter peas. A total of 1100 lbs of seed to plant.

As you remember, I was tracking weather and extended weather.  The thing about planting a crop is the timing. Timing is everything in farming. Sometimes you get your seed in too early and no rain for over two weeks and the seed dies in the ground.  Or you don’t get your seed in before the rains and you are too late because the rain comes and does not let up enough to plant. Or you get your crop in and there is a hard freeze, again kills the seed.  It is tricky at best.

I watch the weather closely.  Pacing back and forth in my mind. Do I or don’t I plant now?  Aaarrrgggghhh…the pressure!  Well, no guts no glory!  My husband has the drill and tractor ready to go by 1:00P Friday.  Daylight is burning, now or later.....

The weather for the weekend was calling for rain. The beginning of the week it was a 20% chance of rain.  Not so good.  By Wednesday, the chance of rain was 30%, a slim chance.  Thursday the chance moved to 40%, still not a great chance of rain.  Okay, Friday morning the rain chance for Saturday night is 50%, a better possibility, but still not the best.  

I decide to take the chance that rain will come. You know, "if you build it, they will come" statement. If you plant it rain will come....hopefully.

My husband dumps the first bag of winter peas into the drill.  What? Why are all the seeds falling down onto the ground???  My husband jumps down and adjusts the rate the seed is to drop out of the drill.  Okay, but it still does not look right…… He goes ahead and dumps 8 bags of winter peas into my drill, 400 lbs.  I take off on the tractor towing the drill behind me.  I am all smiles. I love farming!  I am wearing my lace up leather work boots, a pair of shorts with holes in them and an old sleeveless t-shirt with my back brace strapped on, leather work gloves on, a straw hat and sunglasses.  I am set. Grease is every where on farming equipment. Best to wear ratty clothes. The grease will find its way onto you and your clothes.

Here is the tractor view of the drill. This is what I see when I turn around on the tractor to check on the drill. 

 Those disc looking things on the bottom of the drill, the seed drops down between them and into the ground that the disc cut. 

My husband walks out to meet me in our north field.  The drill is hydraulically operated. There are two hydraulic hoses running from the tractor to the drill. One hose raises the drill discs and the other disengages the drill.  We do a quick check and I am off. I speed up the tractor and lower the drill to begin planting winter peas.  I make two turns on our north field. My husband stops me to check the rate the seeds are dropping and to adjust accordingly. 

SURPRISE!   There isn’t a seed one left in the drill……………….WHAT!?  So what do we do? Neon Sign flashing, city slickers….We go back to where we have the seed stacked up and loaded up the rest of the winter peas!  I know, I know, what were we thinking?  We were thinking we had the setting too high.  Okay, my husband loads the remaining 100 lbs and off I go again.  He waits at the north field for me to make one pass.  Yep, you guessed it…nothing left in the drill…………..”Houston, we have a problem.”  As my husband says, “rocket science might be easier.”  My husband admitted later, he should have fixed up the first drill we bought instead of this one....

My husband gets out his manual on the drill and begins to read it. Now?! After the fact? Really?  He finds the problem.  Poor husband, he is as clueless as me. If we had done some homework, we would know what to look for. The pictures I hope will help you visually.  There are no feed gates on this drill!   This means, nothing is keeping the seeds from all falling out at a very fast rate.   

See the seeds? The middle slot has a gate, but it is down. It is broken. We tried to close it, but it just fell open time after time. New seed gates are $18.70 a piece. We need 15 gates $$$.  If you look above the seed you will see a wheel. this is what turns and drops the seed amount you want to plant. 

The feed gates hold the seed back and a wheel turns and releases the amount of seed that is set, the set rate.  What we have on our drill is a wide open pour spout.  It is like walking and pouring the 50 lb bag out onto the ground. 

 The seed drops down into the funnel in the picture above, then down these hoses to the disc into the ground. 

Here is a picture of my neighbors drill to give you a better idea. The hoses are to the left upper corner. The seed comes down those and the disc deposits them into the ground.

OH NO!  I just planted 500 lbs in less than one acre!  Actually probably all 500 lbs planted in a quarter to half an acre!  I have 15 acres to plant!

What to do?  I still have 700 lbs of seed to go!  We are at a stand still.  I call my closest neighbor and tell him my story.  He laughed, as I expected him to do.  We city folk do make for good entertainment. I asked if I could rent his drill to finish my planting.  Sadly he was in the midst of planting himself.  But when he was finished he was happy to let me use his drill.  Okay.

I call my other farming neighbor.  He is not planting anything this fall so sure, I can borrow his drill.  He won’t let me rent it.  I took my tractor down to his farm and he hooked up his drill for me.  Meanwhile, I send my husband off to the feed store to get 200 lbs more of winter peas.  

 This is my neighbors bigger drill. It is much wider than mine and makes fast work of planting. 

 This is the back view of the drill. You stand on the running boards to load the seed into the drill.  You notice the bar on the ground and chains? This follows behind you and covers the seeds and smooths out your field.

A look inside the empty drill. The seed is fed into these openings. See the wheels? These turn and allow the amount of seed you need to drop down. 

Nice long drill bed for lots of seed.  We loaded 700lbs of seed into this drill.

While I wait for his return, I feed Vinny.  My husband calls from the feed store. Bad news, (now what?) they are out of winter peas………..what do I want to do?  I pace around while we discuss this trying to figure out what to do. I am burning daylight here!  Finally I tell him to purchase 200 lbs of oats. I will finish off the north field in oats!  That is 4, 50lb bags of oats at $20.00 a bag.  I now have purchased a total of 1300 lbs of seed.  500 of it planted in less than half an acre!

                                           This is what the oats look like. 

The feed store is 20 miles away, one way.  My husband arrives back at the house around 5:30P.  We have burned a lot of daylight!  Sunset is at 7:00P… My husband loads my neighbor’s drill with all of the oat seed, sets the rate for the amount of seed to be planted.  Off I go again to the north field.  My husband walks out and waits for me to make one complete turn on the field.  He checks the rate of seed dropping and all is right with this planting!

This is how you set the rate of seed you want to drop. The smaller the number the fewer the seeds drop. The bigger the number the more seed drops. There are two of these on the drill.  The setting I used was 6.

I take off and keep making my turns planting the oats.  By sundown, I covered the entire north field twice in oats and made a couple of planting passes on my east field.  I head back to the staging area.  Did I mention the wind blew ALL day long from the south?  Not a gentle breeze but wind at around 15 to 20 mph, gusting to 35 mph.  I was dirty, tired and ready to get out off the tractor saddle.  Yes, you do walk a bit funny once you descend from the tractor but you straighten up shortly. I’ve made two visits to the bone crusher since. I some how push my ribs on my left side out of place.  Yes, it does hurt.  Plus I tend to get my lower back out of alignment. 

 Here is another shot of my tractor. I call it big red, but truly compared to my neighbors, it is a mid size tractor.

Okay, the tractor runs great!  My neighbors drill is great.  I just have 700 lbs of seed left to plant.  My husband has to leave town for work on Saturday.  He is not happy with the idea of me loading 700lbs of seed into the drill.  I was not thrilled either, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  Drills have a running board attached at the back, see the 6th picture up. You stand on that and unload your seed into the drill. So you pick up the 50lb bag set it on the board, step up onto the drill board then lift the 50lb bag up and dump the contents into the drill.  Simple right?  Yes and no.  You wear out quickly after a few hundred pounds of up and down.

My husband decided he would load the drill then and there with the remaining 700lbs of seed.  That way in the morning I could just head out to the fields and plant.  I have the best husband in the world!  I knew if I did all this lifting I would be laid up for months.  Since there was no rain for Friday night, it was a plan.

Saturday morning, I head out, cleaned the bird coop and fixed them up for the day.  Vinny was fed.  The dogs were in their fenced area and I was ready to rock and roll on the tractor.  The wind was still blowing. I was wearing the same nasty clothes from the day before. I did shower the night before. 

My husband took this picture from his phone as he was leaving for work. I am at the southwest end of the field with drill in tow.

I take off and begin with the south field, the largest of our fields.  It is nearly noon.  All is good.  The wind is blowing the clouds are moving in, the temperature was hot and sticky, but seed was going into the ground as planned!  The rain chance jumped to 80% for the evening!!!  As my husband was leaving, I pulled over and chatted with him for a minute and asked how much diesel was in the tank.  He told me a quarter of tank, which will be plenty to finish.  As I watch him drive off, the tractor begins to sputter…..then lose power, more sputtering. My heart sinks while I watch my husband drive away.  We have this slight incline on the field I am planting.  The tractor can barely make it up the incline.  OH NO!  My mind is racing and my heart is sinking.  My husband is off to work.  The tractor is having a hissy and I have all this seed to get into the ground before the rain!!!! 

I inch the tractor to the lawn and park it.  I grab two five gallon diesel cans and zoom to the gas station.  I bring home the diesel, at $4.00 a gallon, and drag the cans one at a time up to the gas tank, which is behind the seat!  I manage to get the diesel from one can into the tank, without incident. I grab the next can and the spout where the diesel comes out is broken, great!  I manage to get most of the diesel in the tank and the rest on me! Yuck…

Okay, let’s start again.  The tractor starts right up. Good sign.  I take off, so far so good…… I speed up, once again sputter, power loss, more sputtering, inching along, coming to the incline again…..not sure I can make it up to the top…..sputter, sputter, no power, sputter……stops on the lawn.  OH MERCY!!!  What can I do now?

Call the neighbor I borrowed the drill from.  What is causing this?  He told me it could be many things, but sounds like something is in the fuel lines not allowing the diesel to get through…great.  He cannot come and help me as he was leaving with his family.  I appreciated his willingness to help, but did not want to waste his day.

,

Call my other neighbor.  Oh good he was home!  Told him my problem and he said the same thing.  He told me he would be right down to take a look.  Did I mention he is 82 years old and farms over 300 acres and raises cattle?   I got my little Ford tractor out.  I knew I would need it to tow my tractor out of the way from the drill. My Ford tractor does not have a hydraulic system.

       This is me five years ago. I've changed a bit since then.  This is a ford 1500 series tractor.  I am dragging a box blade behind it.

My neighbor shows up.  I cannot start the tractor at all now.  We unhitch the drill from the tractor, very heavy.  I keep trying to start my tractor but no go.  I ask him if I could rent one of his tractors to finish planting.  No I cannot rent it but I can use it.  He takes off to get one of his tractors for me.  Meanwhile, I finally get my tractor started. I limp it inch by inch over to the concrete pad for my husband to work on when he returns from work.

My neighbor comes back with one of his tractors.  We get the drill hitched up to his tractor. He gives me a lesson on starting and driving his tractor.  He has me drive it to make sure I could handle it.  All good.  He leaves me to finish my task.  It is getting late and I am still on the first field and have two to go.  I believe it was about 3:00p.  I take off and get planting.  I like my neighbor’s tractor!  You sit very high off the ground.  He has one of those steering wheel knobs that attaches to the steering wheel.  

 I wondered why he had that since tractors had power steering.  It comes in handy, I found out.  The speed control lever is just up behind the steering column. I make turns using the knob with one hand, while adjusting the speed with the other hand.  I really like that! I am getting one for my tractor.  Nice old tractor.  He had the engine over hauled 3 years ago. Man it ran nice.  Now it is a tall tractor. The top of the rear wheel well is above the top of my head. I am 5’4” tall.  The first step up is high.  I mean high. You are nearly doing a back bend to get your foot up on the first step!  You have three steps up to the seat.  It is an open tractor like mine.  So wind, dust and grit greet you all day.

I finish the first field move onto the second field, where I feel a few rain drops on me. Oh No, not yet, let me finish planting before you rain!  The rain stopped. Whew. I hope that is not it for rain.  I head for the north field next, where I planted oats and winter peas (lots of peas).  I managed to plant all three of my fields!  I had left over seed of course, so I replanted my east and south field twice.  I kept thinking, here I am on a borrowed tractor planting with a borrowed drill.  Have I got great neighbors or what!? I felt very blessed by their graciousness. I have to figure out a way to repay them for their kindness.

It is about 6:00p. Sunset is at 7:00p and the sky is filling up with dark clouds. My husband comes driving down the driveway!!!!???  He had a training class in Dallas for work, but they forgot to notify him that it was canceled.  I was happy to see him! 

I finished with some seed left in the drill, which is normal.  We discounted the drill from the tractor.  My husband greased all the fittings of my neighbor’s tractor and we got more diesel fuel to top off his tank.  I drove his tractor back to his house.  My husband followed in the car.   It was nice to sit and chat with them for a bit.  They were so kind to me.  They told me this is normal in farming.  Your equipment breaks down when you need it the most.  They told me they were happy to help. 

My husband covered my neighbor’s drill with tarps to keep the rain out of the seed bins.   I took a long shower. My hair, mouth, nose, ears, and all over felt like I rolled in dirt all day.  My husband took me out for a bite to eat.  That night, we heard a sound we have not heard in a long while………rain.  We got three quarters of an inch.  I went to sleep that night a happy farmer.

Next afternoon my husband vacuumed out the drill of all the remaining seed.  We put the seed in one of the seed bags.  My husband tilled up a spot by our bird coop for me to plant the left over seed.  The birds will love the rye, clover and some peas when they come up. 

Seven days passed and sure enough you can see my winter peas coming up!  14 days later and my clover, oats and rye are coming up too.  We have not had any rain since the planting, but we were blessed with heavy dew a couple of mornings. We got a smattering of rain earlier this week. Just a trace, but a welcome bit of rain.  My fields look good. 

 Just beginning to sprout.

Normally I would run the disc over the field one more time to kill all the weeds before planting, but what moisture I had in the soil I wanted to keep there in case it did not rain, so I just planted among the weeds.  In time, the rye, clover, peas and oats will choke out the weeds.  

My two neighbors both have old used equipment, like myself.  You may wonder why.  The answer is pretty simple.  A new tractor is roughly $350,000.00. Yep, you read that correctly.  Now a commercial farmer, one who farms 3,000 plus acres will buy new equipment.  Small farmers like my neighbors cannot.  A new drill is over $20,000.00. They rebuild and basically just keep their old equipment running. My neighbors both have 3 old used tractors a piece. This way when one tractor breaks down, they can keep going. 

I need to follow their example and find another tractor as a back up. 

 I thought I would share a few photos of my fields growing.  This is the exciting part of crop planting.  I like to watch the crop grow.  Hopefully we will get more rain sooner than later.  If not, all the work will be for not. 

Winter peas begin planting here.

Where the peas end. notice the rock soil.
  

Lots and lots of peas. They are thick and will get thicker, if the weather permits. If you look closely you can see peas laying on the ground. Birds and critters won't eat them because of the inoculation on them.

This is a close up of clover, rye and oats, along with some weeds. the weed is on the bottom left corner of picture.  You can see a winter pea sitting on the ground as well.  See how rocky the soil is.

Winter peas nice and thick.

The two outside rows are winter peas and the inside is oats, clover and rye. We need rain!

As you can see the soil is poor, but the crop is doing its best to come up. 

South field as of October 29th. 

South field November 6th. We had a bit of rain. Still need much, much more.

East and North field October 29th.

The east and North fields November 6th. Still in need of rain!

What we learned.  We are still novice farmers but have the heart to keep at it.  We do a complete search and study before we buy another piece of equipment.  We have two great neighbors that are willing to help and teach us. 

One day we may be known as farmers not farming city slickers.