The ever expanding/shrinking workshop

Ayup to all the above--excepting we call the platform a header and the overall machine a combine.

I assume a lot of yours is white, not hard red? The whites here have been "the coming thing" for it seems almost 20 years now but still the combination of varietal problems and the extra handling for segregation haven't had enough premium available to make them take off on a widespread basis as yet.

We're about 50-50 wheat-milo on the dryland w/ some dryland corn depending on the year. Run feeder heifers on wheat pasture and stalks over winter (assuming it gets in early enough and have the rain to have the pasture--just now getting ground covered this year as were too dry until nearly end of September/mid-October to drill) and then move some to our lots and sell rest off in spring before starting field work.

There was some 100-bu dryland corn around this year...Quite a lot of irrigated corn/soybeans.

Folks keep trying various alternatives for less water-requiring things--there's a little cotton, sunflowers, have tried Jerusalem artichokes, ... but nothing really has taken over for the old staples as being economically viable. The current new idea is canola but until can solve problems w/ shatter and high loss rates owing to the tiny seed size it'll stay that as well...

But, as you say, production equipment is light years from what used to be. We're running 24-32ft headers w/ the size of our operation and ground; couldn't survive w/o the monitoring gear though both for input control and output monitoring to tie the two together though even on our acreage (we're about 2000, larger than average for the county when I left high school, well under now of course).

OBTW, Mom and Dad did a K-State/USDA-sponsored visit w/ a "people-to-people" type touring arrangement where visited quite a number of farms/ranches in AUS and NZ back in the 80s. One of the families returned a visit some years later here (altho was while I was engineering in TN so I didn't meet 'em).

Oh...we have had a few Aussie basketball players over the years at the local community college, though, which has always been entertaining. The latest is now a senior on the womens' team at Oklahoma State/Stillwater having finished her second year here in '06-07.

Reply to
dpb
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Ah, the ever-coveted "You suck" - Thank you. :-)

Reply to
Steve Turner

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:51:52 -0800, the infamous "Lew Hodgett" scrawled the following:

What, you want a large yard and driveway you have to shovel clear of snow _every_ _day_? I don't blame the Great White Northers.

-- You know, in about 40 years, we'll have literally thousands of OLD LADIES running around with TATTOOS, and Rap Music will be the Golden Oldies. Now that's SCARY! --Maxine

Reply to
Larry Jaques

A major reason I left Ohio for SoCal.

Could hire people to shovel the stuff but got tired of being up to my arm pits in 6 ft of partly cloudy from November to May every year.

Standing at my front day on a 70F Christmas day and seeing the snow on the mountains to the north has it's advantages.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:45:38 -0800, the infamous "Lew Hodgett" scrawled the following:

Amen, and I've never lived in snowy country. It dropped an inch or two in Arkansas when I was a boy, and it occasionally sticks here in OR, but I've never lived in frozen wasteland and never want to.

My idea of snow when I lived in LoCal was to spend an hour driving up to Mt. Palomar, take an hour there playing in the snow (in t-shirts, with the hot winds blowing on us from the Borrego Desert), and then head home.

No shoveling needed, no snow chains required, no blizzards to survive, just fun.

Works for me.

-- When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine

Reply to
Larry Jaques

They really are silly in Canuckistan, eh? When I lived in Vermont I never shoveled out the my 1/2 acre yard. ;-)

The driveway was made short work with an 8HP snow blower. I sold it when I moved to Alabama. ;-))

Reply to
krw

Smart man.

Reply to
Nonny

Then there's the alternative.

Grass to cut, Lawnmower to run, Fertilizer to spread, Clippings to compost,

Agreed, summer has it's better side, but it has some downsides too.

Reply to
upscale

But we have to do that here too, but only for a couple of months.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:48:21 -0500, the infamous snipped-for-privacy@teksavvy.com scrawled the following:

Nah, I didn't DO lawns. See the pic of my shaving horse on my website if you don't believe me. I've taken flak for that for years now. Heh!

-- When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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