Raised in a different time!!!!

One of the reasons I still lend people stuff is I was raised in a very different time. Very few farmers owned a full line of equipment. Each of you owned a tractor maybe even two tractors. Then you might own a square baler but your brother/Uncle/Father might own the hay rake. Both of you more than likely owned a sickle mower to mow hay with. You might have owned a corn planter but your brother/uncle/Father might own the tractor/corn picker. So on and so on.

When I started farming this practice allowed me to start farming without having to own everything you needed to farm with. I would use family/neighbor's equipment and try to buy some thing none of us already had so we all could share it. Since I was good at fixing things I would go over equipment I borrowed. An example was flat bed wagons. I would grease the bearings, tighten the steering up and etc. Maybe put a better used tire on it. This was before or after I used it but defiantly before I returned it. If it had an engine/fuel tank it went back FULL. I do not care if it was empty when I got it. Anything I borrowed went back like it was or better if I could. Being this way allowed me to get a foothold in the business of farming. Fellow farmers actually helped new guys get started.

Not today!!!! Established farmers will try and HOG anything they can get away with. Bid up all the ground in a 50 mile radius just to be able to brag they are "farming" thousands of acres. Might be breaking even on a lot of it or even losing money but they are covering the acres. Most would not even think of helping a neighbor out. Only IF you die or are terminal ill then they will show up just so they do not look bad. The second your cold they will be beating down every single landlord's door you dealt with and calling your widow trying to get her to "rent" the farm to them.

I guess I will just have to be like the rest of them and tell everyone to get their own stuff as mine is no longer available. This includes your own kids too. Do not transfer or sell anything until your dead. Then your kids can try to figure it out when they are in their late 40s/50s and have little of their own as you hogged it all for yourselves.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!! I will just keep trying to treat my fellow man like I would like to be treated. I will get screwed over at times but I can sleep at night better. I will just be grumpy on YT about it!!! LOL

I have never seen where sharing equipment and lend/borrowing worked out as a plan yea might lend something for an emergency breakdown but not as a long term plan.I'm from the 'old days' and
there was/is always a problem sharing.Biggest thing is everyone's hay is ready to bale,grain is ready to combine etc at the same time.Also who did it and why did something get broken was it long term wear or operator neglect? So who pays to fix? People's idea of what condition to keep equipment in too.My dad was fine with a hay rake with half the teeth in it,I check every morning when I grease a rake for any broken teeth and if one is broken I replace it before I rake that day.The list goes on and on.

During my youth, my father, uncle, and cousin(20 years my senior) worked together. They each had their own tractors, tillage, and planting equipment. One, then two pull type combines. One set of hay equipment. Two pull type corn pickers. One Bidwell bean thresher. So harvest was a joint effort. It worked well. I thought nothing of it until I bought my farm from an elderly neighbor. We were finishing up threshing beans, and the old fellow showed up and remarked at how we all worked together. No hollering, everyone just did their thing.

No one wants to trade work with me, I am either to small an operation to bother with, or I am too big, and they don?t want to trade work with me cause they feel they will get sucked into doing a lot more than they want. Where I live there is a good bunch of fellas looking for custom work to help pay for equipment they have bought. Cutting, baling, wrapping, planting, manure spreading, forage harvesting, and combining, are all just a phone call away. It is a different world from what I knew as a child, but I could see it changing as I grew up. My dad?s generation still had a threshing ring till I was 9. Dad ever up with the thresher, as all of the other farmers in the ring retired or quit farming. More and more farms were bought by city folks that didn?t want to farm, just live in the country. Deal with these types a few times, and you soon stop lending any equipment, and they are just too busy to trade work. So it was just a natural evolution that made farmers more independent.

When I started out haying 30 years ago it was with a partner. We each brought a tractor and part of the equipment to the table, and each made any repairs needed to the other's equipment while using it. Later on after he moved away, the local dairy farmers used to ask me if I needed to use something so that they could avoid maintenance. Now that I have downsized I swap work with a fellow who was a playmate of my son. He mows for me, and I mow edges of his fields. I also baled for him last year when he had baler problems. It works out very well.

I never liked borrowing anything, but there were times I had to on occasion.
Same mentality as you, always return like you borrowed it, or better. One example is small power equipment. I used to borrow a 3" trash pump off season from a friends pool service business. We used it to surface the ice for winter hockey games. Every spring, the pump would have the oil changed, filled with fuel and ready to work when returned. I always made sure that people knew I was like that, same with a rental house for heavy equipment, always greased, cleaned, treated like I owned it. The best thing about it, was that if you did need something in a pinch, no problem to borrow because people know how you are, trusting you with their equipment. It's also a nice feeling when returning something, in gratitude by doing the above. Does not cost much in comparison to owning whatever it is, to take care of the little things and do the right thing.

We still practice that way of farming in my family. Grandpa, Dad, and myself own different pieces of equipment and share it to get our acres covered. Dad and I drive truck for a living, as did Grandpa, and so we all work together to get things done and to also allow each of us to keep our weekly cash flow coming in. As I'm at 30, a year newly married, and starting a family I can't be around the farm quite as much because I need the steady income. Dad at 55, many things paid for and no kids to worry about, can be around more. Grandpa at 80, still farms but otherwise retired and doing what he loves, can be around all the time. He knows that we need to work on the side.

Sometimes there's a little argument but it's not much as we all well know each other's strengths and weaknesses and depend on each other to do their part. If something breaks down we tend to laugh it off and say ..it happens! Whoever gets to town first and gets the parts is usually the one who pays for it. Doesn't matter whose it is. We don't worry about whose field gets planted first.. They will all get done, just have patience. This includes the 400 acres we custom farm.

I agree with you JD. Many of the bigger farmers will bid to rent ground for a ridiculous rate just so they have more to farm. They must not be able to stand a small or young farmer trying to throw his or her hat in the ring. Sometimes their justification for paying so much is that they have another field or two that they are getting a pretty good deal on so when you average it out they are still making money. Seems silly to pay more to make less. But hey at least Jay the neighbor didn't get his filthy hands on it.

Nobody helps young guys get started. They hope their kids take interest in it and yes, many kids do take interest. It's interesting the ones that don't have anyone to leave it to will be the ones at the coffee shop saying how there's no young guys who want to do it anymore. No young guys that want to work. That's not true. And then they go and rent out everything to an already well established farmer. Happens all the time around here.

Helping neighbors out. That is a rare thing anymore. Some neighbors refuse to accept help and that's their business. Like you say, usually only when someone is very sick or worse. The bad thing is some of these guys that help these families out during their time of need may have an ulterior motive hoping they can get their hands on the ground afterwards.

Yeah there's not much can be done about it. I probably won't ever own much ground, and probably won't ever be able to rent anymore or at least not much. But I'll keep my dignity and integrity. I don't want to farm the world.

Dad got a nervous condition about 1964 that effected his ability to swallow food and keep it down called achalasia, local quack doctor had him on tranquilizers that just made him want to sleep all day. Not sure which neighbor it was that went to his land-lady about renting the farm out from under him but I hope the SOB went broke and starved to death. Land-lady never said who it was, just confronted Dad and asked, "You able to farm this place or should I rent it to someone else?" Dad had rented the place for 12-13 years at that time, prior tenants only lasted a year or two at most. Mom found the name of a different Doctor at University Hospital in Chicago that treated the condition, wrote him a letter, week later Dad got called, Doctor had a bed waiting for him, Dad had neighbor run him the 175 miles to hospital. When Dad came home 5-6 days later he could eat, no tranquilizers. Dad farmed the place 8 more years till the heirs sold it to settle the land-lady's estate. Farm sold at auction, Dad had absolutely NO desire to buy the place.
So having neighbors, even family try to get ground away from other farmers is nothing new, happened 50 years ago, happened 100 and 200 years ago too.

Reading all your letters, I too remember as I grew up on the farm, neighbours, all freinds, helping each other in labour, tine, machinery. The comeradery, teasing, carring was a way of life. In my opinion," the this is MINE" sindrom has,like in all areas of life, infiltrated and disintigrated all conections. Those of us who remember, let us continue to do the best we can to continue to practice the practice. This includes " do unto others as we would like done unto us" re quotation, but true. Yes there will be a very large possibility one may be "wronged" yet these three remain HOPE, LOVE, AND FATH.
WM.

I'm just a two row guy and only plant sweet corn. I have let my two row planter out several times. last time it came back set up totally different then when it left. Of course I didn't catch it till I'm half way done planting mine. Then a year later. My brother lent out my cultivator. Again it came back set-up for different row widths. Kinda peed me off. I'm not lending anything any more, just as I don't borrow. With borrowing. I end up fixing some ones else's crap every time.

Not much equipment got borrowed or loaned out in our neighborhood other than there was only a couple guys with choppers and blowers to fill silo and that was done at X cost per acre. Maybe we were wealthy farmers but it sure didn't seem like it at the time. One thing that did happen almost every spring was helping everyone get done plowing. If you got done you helped the neighbor before you greased the plows and put them away. You got paid with a trip to their fuel tank by being invited to eat a meal with them. Funny thing was with all the brand loyalty there was in equipment nobody seemed to mind off brand help when finishing up. We had the only A-C on the road so we were outcasts no matter where we went. There was a bit of help that went back and forth when baling but most families had a bunch more kids than they do nowadays.

You speak of hogging ground there was a big piece of ground down the road that was in an estate and it was to sell this past spring at auction. There was all kinds of "deals" being struck like I'll buy it and I'll keep this quarter and sell the other to you if you dont run me up etc. But one guy circumvented the entire process by offering the daughters a BIG price and they took it. Guess that's just how it is now a days?

So whats wrong with that? No matter who got the property everyone else wanting it would be pi$$ed off so it only seems the way to go is for the person wanting to pay the most gets the land
happens with every item at every auction I've ever been to.Never heard an auctioneer say no to the high bidder he can't have the item going to give it to the 3rd backup bidder
at his bid for some reason or the other.Sure wouldn't be fair to the seller either for the person wanting the to pay the most not to get the land.Personally I think several people making deals before the auction to keep the land from bringing its maximum value is flat out cheating the seller(s).

I definitely follow the Golden Rule when it comes to tractors and equipment.I don't lend and I don't borrow.Another one for you 'Neither a lender or borrower be you'.

If I was the landowner I'd be looking to get the maximum amount of money or best deal I could for my land and it wouldn't be up to all the rest of the folks in the neighborhood to decide
what's the best deal for me.The deal would be between me the landowner and the renter I choose and the rest can like it or not and mind their own business.

Maybe it is a local thing, but I grew up in the 50s and 60s in west/central Kansas and never saw equipment borrowed unless there was a serious breakdown at harvest time. Then maybe.

There were farmers who lacked some things and you generally saw them on the stool at the beer joint more often than you saw those who were fully armed with machinery. Those who lacked equipment generally didn't have much ground, either. I was taught that they didn'thave much because they spent too much time on those bar stools. However, even those guys had enough equipment to get seed in the ground and to harvest it later.

You're a good egg, JD Seller. You really do have a good heart towards people.

After having some items returned damaged... we like others here, have joined the "Neither a Borrower, Nor a Lender Be" Club.

Used to be that folks seemed to have at least one neighbor that they traded work with. Dad owned a grain drill on halves with a neighbor right to the north and a hay rake with my uncle on the place right north of there.

There was an older neighbor that I always traded work with. I round baled his hay and he did my combining. I don't even HAVE a close neighbor anymore.

We lend and borrow as little as possible now. Biggest problem I had was people not realizing they were misusing stuff. Plow coming back with points missing but they had continued plowing anyways as they didn't know any better. Plowing with sway bar links set rigid instead of adjusting the first furrow/ line of pull or moving tire in/out. Stuff damaged from too long a pto shaft for their tractors. I much prefer it going out with my tractor on the equipment and me operating it and they can return the favour later with their tractor / equipment / time.

So, now that you have made it known that it will continue as before, is it possible that you will loan anything to that former customer again? The one that ran up 75 hours on your tractor and left it with no fuel?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

Back 50 plus years ago the ground in this neighborhood was never highly productive so just about everybody worked with the neighbor as you could not afford to own everything. Most farms owned 2 tractors at a minimum and a few had 3. The co-op'ing ended during the 1980's.


We have the same problem of a few BTO's trying to hog everything today. I think that they are sowing the seeds of their demise whether they can see it or not. The fewer the people with a direct connection to farming the more people will be less inclined to support US farming either politically or economically. Demand for milk would be fraction of what it is which is already severely affecting the industry if there was no demand for cheese or ice cream. I go into the grocery store on Friday and see maybe 70-80 gallons of fluid product in a city of 10,000 plus supporting another 10,000 or more outside that little city. Yes, that grocery is not the only game in town but it is the largest store. People go to college and some go into fields concerning food research. Things such as artificial protein are being worked on and the predictions are artificial food will be widely spread in the next couple of generations. So far the machinery manufacturers have been able to get farmers to absorb prices with reduced units going out the door. At what point will the farmers who are left figure that they can't afford a million dollar tractor or combine because there are not the acres in play on the land rental market to make it pay. When equipment production hits a certain minimum what decisions are made in terms of continuing to operate that factory?


Don't get me wrong as I understand the world does not sit still. I get that some people just do not make good farmers and the best thing that they could do is sell to somebody more capable and has more financial means. Having said that I think we are past the happy medium point of ridding inefficiency in the industry and flat out gutting good employment opportunities for minute incremental gains. I have to wonder what the son of one of the dealers who brought big iron lines such as Steiger and Will-Rich to New York thinks anymore as the dealership struggles to survive because the customer numbers keep shrinking in general. What the fertilizer dealer thinks who bent over backwards for a BTO's business years ago only to see that BTO abandon him. Sometimes in a society you have to look past other measures such as efficiency and look at the human factor. Sorry if I rambled but I have been kind of tired the past couple of days.

I have one neighbor that we are close with. We keep track of what we do for each other and charge a reasonable rate for it. But if we have a brake down we feel free to ask and borrow from each other. I used his disc this spring when mine had a problem and sometimes when short on help he will use my silage wagons. It works ok but I try to go out of my way to make it work. We washed and greased the disc before returning it. I am like some of the others in that I do not have anything new enough or big enough that the farmers around me would want to use it. Tom

Two neighbor guys farm as partners, and their baler jumped time and pretty much destroyed itself toward the end of the hay season about 35 years ago. They asked to borrow my baler to finish up- I had a few acres left to bale, so they agreed to bale mine up first, then use my baler for the rest of theirs. Everything went fine, they baled mine up in good shape, brought the baler back all cleaned out and lubed for winter.

Couple months later I needed to dig a hole, so asked to borrow their backhoe for an hour or so. They said, "Sorry, we don't loan our equipment out." I mentioned that they didn't seem to have the same reluctance to borrow, and they said "If you had turned us down, we would have understood and not held it against you." Sure.

No neighbours here either....as a kid, there were 7 homes within a mile of us, all farming neighbours. Now, 4 of those homes are gone, 3 are rented to less than neighborly people, and 2 of those should be burned. Don't know even who owns most of the land...offshore investors....and those I do know live miles away. Borrow their stuff? Not bloody likely!
Ben

Who said anything was wrong with it? I said thats how things are done these days and not how it used to be,, and that is true.

When I decide to sell my farm it goes to the most net money offered period end of discussion.

Kinda funny but as a teen I didn't know much about farmers being from the burbs in NJ. That all changed in 71 when dad retired and we moved to rural MN. When dad bought 200 acres and we started meeting locals many would spend a good deal of time warning us to watch out for certain neighbors. The guys who would at a reception after a funeral would ask the widow about buying em out of renting. The ones who borrowed stuff and either didn't return it or would tear it up and never fix it. So this isn't something new. But the number of farmers went down by almost 90% between then and now. Lot of the ones who survived did so because they were greedy and self centered.

Just my observations......

Rick

You sound like my previous renter he's mad because i excepted a higer bid. He assumed it was ok that i got half what everyone else was receiving and when i died my farm was going to be his kids free and clear. He also assumed it was ok for him and his kid to have nice toys and vacations but i didn't need them. My current renter is a young kid farming with his family sure they qualify as a bto but and a huge but they provide jobs for lots of people they are diversified and keep employees year round they work with investors and one thing they say business is business they also donate to charity. As long as they treat the land ok I'm fine with them there actually doing a better job than the previous renter.
My question to you is if you had money in a bank that was doing poorly would you keep it there or find a better investment ?
Yes i remember the days of helping neighbors and i still do . i have several pieces of equipment loaned out now and gave away a rake and wagon plus other small stuff to young farmers.

That explains it. I am different because I grew up in a different time.
I read that if you only need an item once or twice that you should borrow or rent it. My sinister-in-law took a dislike to me because she thinks I should not borrow from them. I feel that family should help out family. I have replaced the floor in his boat, baled hay while he was at work, raked hay so that he could bale it after work, loaded hay and stacked it in the barn, but I am the leech.
She is married to my brother, and that makes him a member of HER family. They live on HER family's property. My brother is 65 today and he called yesterday to offer something to me, if I help him remove it. Not going to happen. I will not set foot on HER property. I just have not explained that to him yet. Why start a fight that can not be won.
SDE

I remember as a child my Dad had a small farm. We were too poor at the time to afford much equipment. We had a borrowed 8N, a worn out mower and Grandpa's rake. No baler. We only had about ten acres of hay at the time. For a couple of years our neighbor across the road willd come bale the hay and did not want to be paid for it. The most he ever let Dad do was put 5 gallons of gas in his tractor as he was leaving. A few summers later that man had a brain tumor. Dad got some of the neighbors together to help the neighbor's two young sons get their hay hay put up.

Dad later was able buy the borrowed 8N along with 40 acres from the man who had loaned it to him.

The fewer the people with a direct connection to farming the more people will be less inclined to support US farming either politically or economically.



------------------------------------------------


That would be the best thing that ever happened to farming.

I think alot like you. Help your neighbor is a God given duty.

Farmerwithamutt: I never said to give less than market value. Lot of land around here renting well above market value for a few years. Now the banks have shut the money off and those fellows are missing payments. It is not size but attitude. A lot of fellow just can not stand to see anyone get anything other than them. They got to have everything they can see. Whether it makes money or not is not even in a lot of their equations. Those are the same one that have been bankrupt several times in their lives. Sticking lots of people but not losing any sleep over it. Ready for the next group of sheep to shear/fleece.

jimg.allentown: I will be doing little to zero business with that fellow anymore. I am easy the first time but pretty hard nosed after that.

Traditional Farmer: I agree that it is the landlord's right to get the maximum value he can. I also know that pure cash money is not always the "best" deal. Lot of operators around here pay high rents but buy little fertilizer until forced to and even then just maintenance. Also things like grass waterway torn out. Gates knocked down and post broken off. Nothing mowed or cared for. Drive ways not cleared of snow in the winter. Lots of stuff that many renters do that the high paying guys do not around here.

When I was a teenager I worked for my uncle in the potato harvest. One year we had so much snow and rain that we couldn't dig. We were to call him each morning to see if we were working or not. One morning he said we were working and so I went to work. We took his tractor with the crossover, tractor with the combine, and his trucks and we went to the neighbors farm and started digging. We dug the neighbors potatoes for 3 days because my uncles ground was a heavy soil and the neighbors was sandy so it dried out quicker. I got paid 3 days wages by my uncle and I don't know if he got a dime for helping the neighbor.

Steven