Manure all around !!!!!! LOL

Since we did not get any snow at all and the ground thawed out but then lightly refroze, we hauled manure on four different farms today. My middle son started on pen pack cattle manure while I finished his chores. The youngest son got the liquid hose system out and then he an I started stirring the hog barn pits after chores. My Mother and one Daughter-in-law started running the disk rippers right after chores too. Second Oldest son took off work at noon and started hauling cattle manure on the rented cattle yard. Late morning the youngest son and I started pumping the hog barn pits. That manure gets directly injected into the ground very little smell. I came in for supper and he had just finished empting the pit. Covered 80 acres like it should have.

The middle son got the home farm cleaned up and switched to the youngest son's farm mid afternoon. Second oldest got done at the rented yards just before supper and he is helping the others get done.

My oldest Grand daughter got off work and took over for my Mother on the one disk ripper. She will run it until around midnight and then I will take over until morning. One of my high school age grand daughters took over for her Mother in the other ripper after school. She will run it until Her father, my second oldest son takes over after supper. He will run until after mid-night and then the youngest son will take over until morning.

Confused yet????? LOL Sounds more complicated than it is with everyone working together. We had quite the age spread too. My Mother at 84 put in 8 hours running the ripper. She will be back at 6 am too. The youngest tractor driver was the High school age Grand daughter at 14, she will only put in 4-5 hours but has home work to do. She has a straight four point so far this year. GREAT!! The two other younger Grand daughters, did all the non tractor feeding chores. So they where a big help too. They are 12 and 13. So we went from 12 to 84 in ages. Not a bad day for the family.

P.S. My Youngest son and I took turns running the injector on the hose system. The other could cat nap while listening/watching the pit pumps. So I am going to lay down here in a few minutes until 11.30 PM or so. We will be pretty well rested actually for tonight. As cold as it is going to get just turn the heater off and you will wake up fast enough. LOL I will bet that we will have to quit tillage at sun down tomorrow as the frost will get too thick to get through. Right now it is only a few inches deep and not real hard yet.

You can shoot some of that in at my place if you have extra.

OK I guess as long as I'm not my own Grandpa.

JD I admire your operation. As a dad and grandad you have alot to be proud of. RB

There is a statistic about the success rate of second- and third-generation businesses. For the typical business it is terrible, and for farms it is even worse.

Yours, clearly, is one of the outliers, congratulations. It's really great to be a part of a team that is that productive, and all kin, to boot.

That's great jd ..my father who will be 86 next week still runs the combine

You guys sure can get a lot of work done in a little time. Bravo for Mom at 84. I have a neighbor at 96 yrs. that did 55 acres of chisel plowing bean ground this fall. The son usually hooks the 180 horse Massey on chisel but had to put the 4250 JD. on for Dad. Never drove anything but JD. all his life and not about to change now.

Wow. You're putting in what it takes to be successful. You may not want to say, but how many acres is the family farming? I don't usually respond to your posts, but I read most all of them. Thanks especially for the post about the "19,000 hour tractor". I'm assuming you are in the Maqouketa area? You have mentioned NE Iowa and from my travels in that area I assume it must be a real challenge to farm there as compared to the flatter parts of the state.

Who's on first??
That is an impressive operation.

Steve A W

K Effective, Success of the future generations is a worry of mine. Human nature to be jealous of what others do or get is a large part of this. Also many successful business men and farmers have dominate personalities. So they often make all the decisions. This is a terrible way to treat and train the next generation. All of us make mistakes. It is better to do so when there is support to mediate the damage of mistakes. The hardest thing I have done when raising my kids, is to let them make age appropriate decisions. You often KNOW they are making a mistake but in the long run it is better for them to experience the results themselves. ( Life and limb safety over rides this) I think that this approach has made them be better prepared for real life.

Several years ago we finalized a business structure for all of our operation. I turned over a LOT of decision making to my kids and their wives. I still technically have veto power over any major decisions. I have not done so yet. I have pointed out several times that the potential reward was not worth the risk involved. Truthfully they have come up with many good ideas that I would not have had.

The most important thing is major decisions are talked about with the entire family in a board room type of setting. I mean all the members. Even my younger grand kids are there too. At 10 or 12 they may not "get" a lot of what we are talking about but I guarantee that them being there will help them in the long run. We try and do this once each month. Anyone can call for a meeting more often if needed.

I will stop here as covering this topic would take up too much space and time for this forum.

55 50 Ron We are further north. South west of Dubuque. Pretty good soils here but a lot of hills. Soils vary too. Livestock works well here.

I am more confused why you are running all night long.
Are you pressed for time because the weather will turn bad??

John in La: The current temperature is only 18 going down to 14-15. The temperatures tomorrow will top out at 25 degrees. Then get down into the low teens again tomorrow night. By Wednesday morning the frost will be 5-6 inches deep, maybe more.

Maybe it will warm up again to thaw the frost out so we can do field tillage work but it might not either.

If we do not get much snow and the weather stays cold we can easily get frost 1-2 feet thick even in December. By late winter any water lines under four feet maybe froze until spring. Under drive ways and pavement I have seen lines freeze at 6-8 feet in really long cold spells.

My son just text me and said the frost is 2-3 inches thick right now, on average. He did say the north side of one field was thick enough the ripper would trip too often. So he had to just forget the north facing slope.

Also the sun will make the top of frozen ground thaw just a little bit. It will get slick like solid ice. Often even in earlier cold spell you can not run after the sun comes out and makes the ground slick but you can run as soon as the sun goes down for an hour or so.

Pictures to go along with your story would be nice?

I thought we had to much frost to chisel here but went out on the road this morning and saw three tractors running. Came home and hooked up to the 4230 and spent the afternoon chiseling. Got finished about 4:30. Still have two short days of manure hauling to do. Maybe start in the morning if I do not go to the sale at Waukon IA. My youngest son raked over 150 acres of corn stalks today for a big steer operation. They need 2000 round bales and are running three balers. He left around 6 this morning and will not be done untill midnight. That all night stuff just does not go for me but my son does it fairly often. One morning the boss called him and asked "Aren't you coming to work today" and his reply was that I never went home I am at the other farm still running the chisel. A big tractor and chisel just went past the house so there are some fellows still going. The newer tractors with great seats and lights make long days much better than my old 4020's. I enjoy your posts and stories. Tom

Went out last Wednesday to rip the last 15 acres. As heavy as the ripper is it wouldn't go in...where it did showed 6" of frost.Pic from last year in E SD...

Pictures to go along with your story would be nice
add smell O vision

No doubt the lifestyle you and your family enjoy surely contributed to the 4.0 the granddaughter is carrying. Hat's off to you and yours. Job well done.

when i read the title i thought it was something political.

I think I could be a big help.
Some accuse me of stirring poo every chance I get. And I do have experience growing up on a dairy farm. I know how to pile poo higher and deeper, PhD.

Your farm,,family,,and you,,would make a great reality show.Im not joking,,you have a really beautiful thing going.Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

I can see the title of today's episode already. The Sh$t show.

In all seriousness, I really love to read about all the activities "down on the farm".

These write-ups are priceless. Bless you and your family!

Titles for reality show?

Dirty Jobs is already taken.

Instead of duck dynasty:

Poo dynasty

The topic that you bring up is so complicated and often each situation is its own with little in the way of direct comparisons. The last time this came up here it got a lot
of fur standing up on end. The failure of a farm can happen for any combination of reasons. The problem could have originated with any of the three generations
involved. Also, we forget that behind a good business is often a very good and shrewd wife.

We have two hog sheds on a rented farm that the manure is applied on 240 acres on that farm by a custom outfit. They have not started yet, the pits are full (not far from overflowing) and we got 16 inches of snow on Sunday with mud underneath. I talked to the manager yesterday and he acted surprised that they hadn't got here yet. I don't know what they are going to do. I'm glad it's not my job.

Love hearing about these "all hands on deck" situations. Our ground doesn't freeze in western Washington, but have similar scenarios when weather is about to break in the fall and by tomorrow it will be mudded in for the rest of the winter.

Gave me a bit of a pause when you mentioned you mother was out there, too, (realizing that you're no spring chicken) so she must be getting on a bit in age. Glad she can still get out there and get after it- and I'll bet she is, too.

Your granddaughters have a lot of great material for "show and tell", but I'll bet they don't use it. lol