[AT] TEST? NOW Ramble! (long)

[Greg Hass]

Spent most of the day inside with the temperature hovering at or a little 
below zero, with 30 mph winds causing -25 F wind chills.   This weather is 
putting the corn-fired boiler (which I installed in December) to the test. 
In the past 60 days, it has used about 4 tons of corn and, despite the cold 
temperatures, I will have to get about 3 tons tomorrow as it is supposed to 
snow Tuesday.  I am making a guess on the amount I am getting this time, as 
the one drawback to the corn boiler is that when outdoor temperatures 
approach 50 degrees F, it overheats and must be shut down.  The reason for 
this is that the fire never goes completely out, and if it goes for extended 
periods of time without the house draining off any of the hot water,  the 
water will turn into steam and it will no longer circulate.

Another subject:  I enjoy seeing stories of farm equipment and farm life, 
and pictures being put on the list such as Ralph does.  I used to enjoy 
going through an album my grandmother had which included dozens of pictures 
of their
F-12, F-20 and WK-40 being used to do everything from binding corn to 
running a silo-filler or running a thrashing machine.  When my grandmother 
died, my dad inherited the book, and then shared some of the pictures with 
his brother.  My dad has been gone for 4 years now and, unfortunately, 
despite going through everything in the house, we have never been able to 
find the book.  We have also asked my uncle's family (he has been gone for 
10 years) to see if they could locate some pictures, but so far no one has 
been able to locate any.  We have no idea what happened to any of these 
photos, although a sister of mine who would come to "visit" my dad every 
Friday for the last year or so of his life.  We have since discovered she 
systematically went through every inch of the house from basement to attic 
and many things are missing, although I cannot say if she took the book or 
not.  It would sure be nice to have some of these photos to share with the 
list.

On the farm level, I have been trying to prepare for the coming planting 
season, although I am having an extremely hard time coming to terms with the 
fact that most of these seed companies want you to know before one year's 
crop is harvested to know what you are going to do the coming year!  I 
called a cousin of mine who sells seed and, although I ordered some soybean 
seed, he told me his company's corn seed is already sold out.  I had already 
ordered my seed corn from another guy who had the variety I wanted, and it 
is $195/bag.  A bag plants less than 3 acres. Friday I called my fertilizer 
dealer to inquire as to whether it would pay to switch to liquid fertilizer. 
I was told that all of their liquid fertilizer has already been sold and 
they can get no more.  Prices of all fertilizers are going up again on 
Monday.  It seems to me that these supply companies are playing the same 
game as the oil companies with their claims of shortages just to drive the 
price sky high.  Even with the higher prices we are receiving for the crops 
now, it is still no match for the hugely increasing input costs.

I will be leaving Thursday for the National Machinery Show in Louisville, 
KY.  I had not even thought of going, however my brother has been planning 
to go for a couple of months with a bus tour.  The bus tour was cancelled a 
couple of weeks ago due to lack of interest so he has decided to drive down 
(about a 7-1/2 hour drive to where they are staying) and asked if I would 
like to go along.  I still would not have considered it, except that my 
daughter lives near Columbus, IN which is about an hour's drive from 
Louisville, so I will stay with her while I am there. Also, my son lives 
near Indianapolis so we will be able to stop there for a couple of hours on 
the way through.  We plan to be at the show on Friday and do other things on 
Saturday, returning to the Thumb on Sunday.

One last little note concerning the price of old iron....try new iron!  I 
received a JD parts sale catalog last week and one thing that caught my 
attention was something as simple as a drawbar for an 8200 tractor.  At the 
"low" price of $735.

Greg Hass
Michigan's Thumb