This may not be in the proper order as to dates and time because I have lost track of where I have stored some photographs but I will try to remember to date those that I have a date for.
This first group of pictures are of soybean harvest in 2006 with a new combine. The Cat Challenger is one that Alan bought, used last year along with the Kinze auger wagon. They make harvest much faster.
Alan & Sharon's house is visible in the distant background.
The technology built into the combine is more amazing than its size and convenience. The operator can change the entire settings to harvest another crop without leaving the seat. GPS mapping, yield/acre on the go, and moisture of the grain can be recorded on memory cards. All in the comfort of a dust free, heated and air-conditioned cab.
The following are pictures of Alan working on the levee on the old Doc Wright place (480 acres) which joins us on the north. He bought it with this work as one of the prime reasons for the purchase, along with controlling the water from Spencer Creek which flows across this place and then floods the old river on us.
Stray pigs in our corn field, seven of them. Jesse tried for several weeks to find the owner but never could so he fed them out himself. They seemed relatively tame and didn't appear to do much damage but they made themselves at home.
Alan chose to make a major change in his operation this winter and sold the fertilizer & spraying business known as Salt River Ag, Inc. Following are just a few pictures of the sale.
This page was last updated: April 27, 2009
Planter, May 14, 2007
Wet weather has delayed planting almost 30 days from what is considered ideal.
In big field just west of the cabin site where we lived when first married.
16 rows
30 inch spacing
32 rows
15 inch spacing
Old Salt River channel in front of the tractor just on the other side of the trees.
Jesse with supervisor, Mason, planting beans.
Spraying no-till corn, 2007
Jesse, calibrating new 24-row side-dressing applicator.
Combining Wheat, June 25, 2007
Luke is riding shotgun with Grandpa Alan
Combine has an extra large cab with a comfortable "supervisor's" seat.
All the comforts of home compared to what we started with 60 years ago...at a price.
Headin' for the shop to get the augur wagon and the challenger.
In the shed waiting for bean harvest.
Alan bought a log skidder to handle the extra logging that will be involved
on the Wright place he bought. It will save the JD loader for lighter work.
She looks rough but she's been used as new is expensive and she's built to take a
beating that only the timber can deal out. Logs are heavy and unforgiving.
Logging on Wright place, September 1, 2007
Mainly a clearing and land reclamation project but trees are valuable enough to
make harvesting them worthwhile. What we used to burn, now they sell.
Jesse is young and strong so he becomes the chainsaw operator.
Alan loading a heavy one.
This loader is probably headed for the sale barn. It won't lift quite high enough.
New combine. A little bigger but much the same machine. The old one was constantly giving trouble, what we call a "Monday morning machine" that was assembled when nobody was in a mood to do good work. After some "discussion" New Holland agreed to a special trade. Alan was almost finished with harvest here but he had custom work yet.
New enterprise on trial.
Close friend and neighbor found the goats for sale on the internet at what appeared
to be a good price, if he took all 200 of them. He talked his "friends" into taking a few
and Jesse took some as did Danny. They are a meat type goat of the Boer breed.
Billy
Flood number one came on June 25, 2008. These pictures were taken after the water had gone down enough that I could drive the pickup down to the bridge.
Within 4 or 5 inches of the bottom of the bridge beams.
Topping the levee on the east side. It also topped the levee on the west side
in one spot.
Field of corn on the east side, later replanted to beans.
Down some but still too deep for a pickup.
Flood #2 hit us on July 26 and was bigger than the first following nearly 13.5 inches of rain on the upper watershed.
The levee on the west side broke on the north end of the farm.
The levee break caused a lot of current which dumped a lot of debris on the roads and in the fields. Jesse went out a little later on a tractor through water up to the bottom of the cab, probably almost five feet deep or more.
Water everywhere. Most of the beans in this field survived but the beans on the east side were an almost total loss because the water stayed on them too long.
We've been down this road before and survived but it's a blow anyway.
There were three floods in 2008 and they left a lot of dirt on the flooded beans.
Jesse was grateful for the cab and filtered air.
Goats were still a force in 2009. This was taken during kidding season, in April.
This may not be in the proper order as to dates and time because I have lost track of where I have stored some photographs but I will try to remember to date those that I have a date for.
