Admitting defeat

So ya'll remember about all the trouble B-rad's been having w/ the combine this year?   Even after I told you about the day it took 6 hours to get the machine unclogged the bastard it broke again the next weekend.  And that was it - the boys decided we were going to have to do something else.   They contacted the Massey dealer we use in Boonville to see if he had any used machines we could rent to get us through the year.  He did & the boys went to look at it a few weeks ago (Yea, I'm behind...)

They're going to charge us $20 an acre but also give us the option to purchase it.  I know ya'll love to hear the astonishing numbers & I aim to please so here goes:

I told ya'll a new machine itself is $200,000-$300,000 & that doesn't include a corn or bean head.  If we purchase a brand new machine we'd have to get new heads too & that's probably another $100,000 at least.   The older style heads (which are what we have) will only work on certain machines.  Newer heads now are universal & will fit onto any machine.  The machine we are renting is compatible with our heads so we're ok there.  I think our 'plan' for the future is to get into a position where we can buy new(er) universal heads, then have more options for a new(er) machine.  They boys don't have to have brand new equipment.  Matter of fact, they NEVER had brand new equipment until a couple of years ago when they bought a brand new tractor from where I work.  

The machine we are renting is a 2004 model.  It's only 4 years newer than our broken machine.  I know that sounds funny to invest in buying a machine that's not that much newer than ours that's been breaking.  There are several improvements to this one that make it a better fit for us (boring inside gut stuff that I have no clue how to explain to you because I don't understand...) This bad boy comes at a price of $130,000.  We will trade in our other machine & I think the difference we will pay is around $80,000. 

We got it last weekend & I hadn't had a chance to ride with B-rad until Thanksgiving night.  

Even farmers have to stay connected while they're waiting for their nephew to come back with the grain cart.  (Oh yea, B-rad's doing 'no shave November' that's why he's so scruffy...I'll post about that later.)

 We finished this field around 11:30 pm Thanksgiving night.  There are no holidays in farming.  B-rad came to moms to eat dinner around noon & was gone by 1:30 to run corn.

 When the indicator says the bin is full - it's serious.  We got full about 1/2 way down the row & then it started spilling over the top.  If you look in the middle of the pic you can see the waterfall of corn.  B-rad climbed on top to push it back into the head to salvage as much as he could.

 It was REALLY cold that night & I had to pee.  I try to not pee in the field because - well - it's peeing...in a field....in front of God & everybody, but I didn't have a choice.  You can't truly appreciate cold until you cop a squat next to a combine tire when it's 23 degrees....

After we finished B-rad decided to load the head on the trailer to be ready to move the next morning. (You shouldn't can't drive the combine down the road with the heads attached.  It's nearly too wide for the road by itself.)  We have a reel attached to the head to help pull up corn that fell down because of the weather (Yea, it's always something...)  B-rad had to raise up on the reel so Brady could disconnect the pto thingie from the head.  Does this look dangerous to anyone except me?  Lord...

 Brady & his buddy worked on getting the hoses unhooked...see B-rad's feet in the head?  This shit makes me so nervous...

 Harvest is going a lot smoother now since we got this newer machine.  B-rad told me the other night, 'we would've been done by now if we had done this a month ago'.  He's hoping to be done by next weekend which is AWESOME because we were thinking he wouldn't be done until December the way things were going.