Harvest Time!!!!

[AllisWD45]

Lots of memories of harvests past.At 10 years old Allis WD45 and hopper box hauling wheat from Cockshutt 428. Kind of a runt of a kid so Mom had to help me start the 6inch Versatile auger.
At 15 we had an IHC 403 big machine chewing 16 ft swaths.Dad hauled with the 61 Chev 3 ton. No cab on combine a real late cold fall damn near froze to death a few times. Did a quarter of flax custom for neighbour Dad was giving me some of the money for running combine. Told him to take it and buy a cab. He did what a change with the new Fibro cab.
Today i am retired and help a young neighbour with way too much work on a good sized mixed farm. Help with haying and harvest. Run a new JD baler with net wrap.It still amazes me how its so easy. Haul the bales in with a hay hiker and at harvest do the swathing and bale straw. Not involved with combining too much pressure doing that. Lots of fun with no stress and it does two things i like. Keeps me in the loop with farming as it was hard to relate to farming neighbours without being involved. Did i mention how good it feels to be sincerely appreciated.
Anyone out feeling lost after your farming days have ended look around there are lot of farms that would give their left nut for a good experienced helper especially during the busy season.

[hobbyfrmr]

That's excellent. You have a good farmer boss. The cattleman around here ask farmers to drop straw, then they bale the nearest quarter. The remainder sometimes gets baled, then left in the neighbours field. The neighbour then has to badger the cattleman in the spring to get the bales off so they can work their own land. This leads to big ruts and mashed out approaches. The other farmers have to try try and heavy harrow the straw windrows they dropped for the cattleman in the fall. Usually the just burn it in frustration.
Another pattern is the the hayfields where the cattleman don't pay too much rent for, those bales tend to get grouped then stay out all winter. I always thought the bales were necessary for the upcoming winter, it must be some kind of inventory strategy.

[AllisWD45]

Don't know about other areas but around here hay and sometimes straw in short supply. Most cattlemen can make enough on their own land. Pretty rare for a big grain farmer to have a conventional combine where you can bale straw.
Actually two things around here are getting few and far between. Hay fields for rent they have all been taken out to grow Canolaaaa and and people who actually keep cattle.

[Hopalong]

A harvest recollection from earlier days is the wheat board unit quotas which were 300 bushels wheat, 500 barley or 800 oats for each permit book holder.
Remember my father sharing a combine with two uncles and a cousin.
They were good wheat pool and wheat board supporters but when the first one had his quota full, other ones used to allow deliveries under their quotas before elevator got full. Later, they would even things out.
RIP wheat board monopoly.