We went to see daughter in IA. First trip there. It was warmer there than it was here in SC. Enjoy it while you can, guys.
Got to meet IA Gary and ride in his red combine. Gary was very welcoming and has a good, weel maintained operation. Gary, I sent you an email last night but apperantly the carrier pigeon crashed since the email server said delivery failed.
Crops and machinery: We went across TN, KY, IN, and IL. Dry across TN and KY. Mostly pasture there. Past Lexington, KY the horse farm pastures did not look all that great and at least one guy was not too proud to feed round bales to his horses. On the way back, talked to a trucker at a rest stop who was taking small squares to a horse farm near Lexington, mixed alfalfa and grass. The farm is using 2 tractor trailer loads a week and he was trucking it from Montana.
Southern IN dry also. Corn and beans started looking better about 70 miles from Indianapolis. Looked good then all the way to IA. They were working in the fields all the way over and when we came back I could see they had made a lot of progress. Came back across IL most of the way on Hwy 136. Some huge flat fields there.
LOTS of new machinery and grain bins in sight. Hope the guys locked in good prices when the prices were high. Green and red equipment seemed to be running neck and neck in popularity.
A lot of new grain buggies were in use. In some areas the big new tractors were pulling tillage equipment.
Corn yields looked real good to me where it had rained.
Just guessing from looking out the windshield I would say most of the beans were cut and half the corn was cut.
Saw the old threshers museum at Mt Pleasant IA. Great operation, lots of old iron, especially steamers. They have a 110 hp Case steamer. Also a Wards gas tractor which I had never heard of before. Also a Fordson F with a combine built around it. Cranking it with that cutter head in front of the hand crank must have been interesting.
Crossed the Miss. river at Keokuck. A litle further over, a ADM terminal was loading a barge on the Illinois river.
KEH
