[AT] here I go again

[Ron Cook]

Charlie,
     You have the planter described pretty well.  I have wished several 
times I had gone into farming.  My dad advised against it and by the 
time I became aware that  all the whining and crying that farmers made 
about how poor they were was just not that true, I was established in 
the crop dusting business.  All the fellows I grew up with that went 
into farming are now well off and retired.  Most have at least one 
vacation home somewhere, mostly in Florida or Arizona for the winter 
months.  I was doing okay until I had the bad accident with the spray 
plane that wiped me out.  I suppose a farming accident could do the same 
thing, but I don't really know of anything there that would put you out 
of business and cost 300 grand in an instant.  But I am still kicking.  
Just not in fancy new boots.

Ron Cook
Salix, IA
On 7/30/2014 10:05 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> I'm sure that rig is a tough ride but it wouldn't be my first rough ride!
> I'd just love to have a disc hooked to something with that much power
> one time in my life after growing up pulling a 16 blade disc harrow and
> having to go over a field 3 or 4 times to get it flat enough to put a
> breaking plow in.
>
> All of our planters, even the old horse drawn ones had curved plates
> (shoes) on the back of them to pack the furrows some sort of device
> to pack the row.   If I remember the old ones right there was a sort of a
> chisel called an
> opener that cut the furrow for the seed, then the planter dropped the seed
> in
> the furrow and there were two curved metal shoes that closed the furrow and
> then 2 metal wheels mounted more or less like the front wheels on a steel
> wheeled
> tricycle tractor behind that.  Those wheels powered the planter plates.  I
> might  not have
> that in the right order.  The shoes might have been in the rear.
>
> It amazes me how far farming has come both in terms of equipment and
> science.
> I occasionally tune in to AG PhD program on RFDTV.  I wish I had every
> episode of it
> on file somewhere.  I wish I had stayed on the farm but when my dad died it
> became
> difficult and no one encouraged me.  I've always regretted not giving it a
> try.  The
> friends I grew up with that did stick it out are very well off today.
>
> Charlie
>