One of my first ride's!

[Pete J.]

I was cruising the internet today looking to see how the wheat harvest was going near the family farm in Nebraska and came across this video.  This is the view I had as a kid growing up on a farm, both as a passenger(I drove truck from the time I was about 9) and as the operator when I got into my early teens.  Yea, we started driving early on the farm.  It was a necessity, not some privilege.

[Kit Basher]

Oh Man, I wish the title didn't say "Antique"! I spent a lot of hours in the seat of a John Deere 45 combine. Now I feel like an "antique"!

[Pete J.]

Oh Man, I wish the title didn't say "Antique"! I spent a lot of hours in the seat of a John Deere 45 combine. Now I feel like an "antique"!

I know what you mean!  I consider myself an antique kid!  Makes me feel better.

[unclescott58]

How old is a John Deere 55, or the 45 Hugh mentioned? I'm guessing these machines are from the 1950's or 60's? If that's the case, they are now antiques. And so are we kids of the 1950's and 60's.

[Kit Basher]

I know what you mean!  I consider myself an antique kid!  Makes me feel better.

I like that! Makes me feel better too. We have some experiences in common. I also started driving when my feet could reach the pedals, and was operating machinery in my early teens. I still live on the family farm, but now we lease it out to custom farmers. The machinery they use now is amazing. A field of wheat that used to take us a couple of days, they do in a few hours.

Scott, I was running that 45 combine from about 1967 on. I started shocking orchard grass and loading hay at about age 11. I made $1.00 an hour. Woo Hoo!

[Pete J.]

Scott, we got our 55 used but it was only a few years old.  The 55's were introduced in 1947 and produced through 1969.  You can tell the early ones, but the block letters on the side of the grain bin.  Later ones had script letters set at an angle.    We had a big orange Minneapolis-Moline before that.  The day it broke is seared in my memory.  We were just leaving the yard.  I was behind Dad driving the truck and he had just put it in road gear when something in the transmission failed locking up the two big tractor tires on the front of the machine.  It stopped  immediately at about 15 or so mph.  it rocked forward lifting the rear tires off the ground a good 12 or 15 feet and stood it up on the header before it came back down. It hit the header hard enough to bend it in the middle.  I don't know how Dad hung on with nothing to hold onto except the steering wheel.  He got off the machine and looked as frightened as I had ever seen him.  He was pretty shaken and that says a lot for a guy who flew PBY's in the pacific against the Japanese.  He got back on the machine after he calmed down and slowly backed in into the yard and parked it.  We went into town and bought a JD 55.  We never bought anything but John Deere after that. 

Oh, and you talk about the new stuff.  The 55 had a 14 ft. header.  My cousin just bought a new machine with a 42 ft. header.   I can't come to grips with a machine that size.  It is doing the same job as three of the old 55s. 

[Kit Basher]

 My cousin just bought a new machine with a 42 ft. header. 

Holy Cow! The machinery used in the Midwest has always been bigger than what gets used here in the East, but that is huge. The header alone would be as big as a decent sized semi trailer.

Great story about your Dad. Thanks for posting this.

[unclescott58]

I made $1.00 an hour. Woo Hoo!

Two hours work, you could have bought a new model kit back then. Heck, it takes me longer than that now, working at my summer job. Pretty good wages back then you got, I'd say.

[Kit Basher]

Two hours work, you could have bought a new model kit back then. Heck, it takes me longer than that now, working at my summer job. Pretty good wages back then you got, I'd say.

Yeah Scott, I was satisfied. Then again, I had a friend who was making almost $5/hr. stocking shelves in a grocery store. He had a convertible, all I could afford was a Yamaha 250. I liked what I was doing tho.

[Pete J.]

Holy Cow! The machinery used in the Midwest has always been bigger than what gets used here in the East, but that is huge. The header alone would be as big as a decent sized semi trailer.

Great story about your Dad. Thanks for posting this.

 

 

It is kind of hard for me to get my head around too!  That thing is a monster.  Here is video of a couple of them in action.  https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=john+deere+combines&&view=detail&mid=85AFC29F461EB98B2F7985AFC29F461EB98B2F79&FORM=VRDGAR  Imagine trying to maneuver this beast.  For those who don't know combines steer with the rear tires.  It takes a little finesse to drive one of these.  To make it more difficult, they are very top heavy so you really have to know what you are doing on uneven ground.  Lots of operator skill needed to do this right.  

[Kit Basher]

Awesome video. I also watched the one of them harvesting corn. It's hard to get a sense of scale of the combines unless you know how big that tractor is, and I know it's big. And a wagon on tracks! Probably self propelled too. Then, how big is that field? Around here, 30 acres is pretty big for one field. Those fields are 200 acres? More? Amazing stuff!

[Pete J.]

The part of Nebraska I am from, most fields are either 80 or 160 acres.  That is because we always let a field sit fallow for a year(crop every two years)  Since most land out here is sold in quarter sections(160 acers) half of that would be 80 acres.  If a farmer has two adjoining quarters he will most often farm them as one, thus 160 acres or half of 360.  The major factor becomes the road system.  Except where they can't be built economically, all rural(dirt) roads are laid out in section(1 mile per side) grids.  This dates back to the early days of the railroad.  I a deal with the railroads, the government gave the railroads every other section of land adjoining the land given to them for the railroad right of way.  They could sell or rent the land as they saw fit.  After that, it was just natural for the surveyors to lay out the remainder of the land in 1 mile squares.