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Monday, July 16, 2012

Cockshutt 40 and Haybine.



Got a little break from the heat the past couple of days. Those 80+ degree temps were a bit much at times. Than an inch of rain brought us back down to the high 60s today which is easier on the crop and me.
Wouldn't you know I would be loading grain on the hottest days of the year. One of the hottest places to work is inside a steel bin on a hot summer day. I'd likely never have survived shovelling those few thousand bushels but the grain vac sure saves some labour.
Of course canola price dropped the day I sold mine but has since increased. No big surprise there. Oats at $3 a bushel looked pretty good a couple of weeks ago when I locked the price in but this drought in the U.S. corn belt is really starting to push grain prices up.
Haying going well and the 35 year old haybine is doing a good job. Should be even better when I add the few hundred dollars of new iron parts to the cutterbar.
The old Cockshutt 40 works well on the haybine but for any serious amount of cutting I will go with the comfort of the air conditioned cab of the 2090 Case and stay out of the grass pollen that causes a lot of optical and nasal distress.
The inch of rain this week will do some good. I was lucky to get my hay baled without a drop of rain on it though.
Our living skies were filled with the sounds of spray planes recently as insecticide and fungicide rained down on the fields. Others sprayed with high clearance sprayers in hopes of maximizing their profits by eliminating every insect and fungus that might be present in the field. I'll take my chances and sacrifice a little yield in exchange for one less carcinogenic chemical to handle.
Heres another local farm blog some might find of interest.

2 comments:

  1. Nice machine if you've got the ground for it. It would work in our West Virginia valleys; don't know about our little hillside fields, though.

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  2. Nice old haybine and tractor. Gorges, I've cut on a hillside so steep that I ended up two windrows over as the haybine had drifted so far down the hill behind me, and I got to see one of my helpers slide a 110hp Minneapolis-Moline straight down a steep hill with the brakes locked up and the haybine just a cutting away. I have since refused to cut such slopes but I'm just saying...

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