Hello everyone,

I've been off Ag Talk for quite a while on a self-imposed time out.

2019 was a really rough year around here in many different ways.

We came off a really wet fall in 2018 that carried right over and all the way through the spring of 2019.

I just got into a bad attitude about everything and seeing some of the negative smart remarks on here running people down for sharing what was important to them or what they were proud of sharing and decided to take a self-imposed time out and stay away for a while.

2019 planting was rough, continuous heavy rains here although not nearly as bad as it was further north in the state.  Not being blessed with adequate mains or drainage made things very tough. Inch or more rains every few days never allowed things to dry out and allow for actual good planting conditions. April bled into May which bled into June. There was a couple day window around June 8^th where I could have opted to plant corn. Being a one man show means a fair amount of time getting things around and positioned to go. It was only a couple day window but I opted at that point to switch and plant everything to beans in hopes of getting the earliest ones planted right away to have any hope of sowing some wheat in the fall. Plus with bulk filling available on the drill it would be much quicker than messing around planting corn and taking the extra time dealing with insecticide and starter. Ground conditions were often marginal at best in many places but the calendar dictated it’s now or never. I‘ve planted corn as late as June 13 before but the end result was not a pretty scenario that I wished to repeat.

Had a few dead ash trees to get moved off field edges before planting and was out pushing those back with the Case 1845 skidloader when I lost all drive on the left side. Nothing, no forward or reverse. Had to call a friend to drag me back to the barn with power on only one side. I thought I had broken the smaller hydraulic motor drive chain or one of the axle drive chains in the chain compartment or puked a hydraulic motor. This was not the case, ended up with a twisted off splined planetary shaft and broke the aluminum housing. I was not really pushing all that hard and not even at full engine power.

 Sort of looks like a manufacturing defect to in the center with a void that finally let go. I found the star shaped pattern somewhat puzzling on the break.

It took most of the summer to track down a replacement as this is the old obsolete style that was replaced with a newer version that is also now obsolete.

Turns out my machine had 1 of each style already so this apparently was an issue at some point in it's life before I bought it.  I finally turned up the appropriate parts with an almost new looking shaft but did also learn that a complete new planetary assembly is being offered as a new unit from this place.I make note of this for anyone else with a 1845 that runs into this scenario and can't find parts. 

https://www.sewlparts.com/

They have these custom made as there is still some demand for the 1845 units.  I think they were around $1600 but I got all the stuff I needed to repair my older style for around $550.

Planting commenced around June 8 with showers and sprinkles nearly every day with a few heavier showers along the way.

Did not take many pics as time was of the essence. Snapped a few for the Auto Von fans.

Finished up on 6/15 with a marathon 30+ hour nonstop planting marathon. I’ve never needed to plant around the clock before but the forecast was for another period of heavy rain coming.

I’m happy to report “Night Vision” Auto Von performed well with year to year repeatability using last year’s Auto Von corn rows as the "correction" signal.

As I drove home from the last field it began to rain and within the next day this area in the picture above was completely submerged with 2-3 inches of rain.  Never really dried up again until last week of June. Stands were not very good and lots of drowned out areas. I ended up living with what I had. By this time wheat was ready for harvest, yields were down and I still had some minor Vomitoxin issues even after having fungicide applied by plane.

Turned off hot and dry and we probably only received 2” of rain all summer long. At least 3 big storms that covered most of Indiana came up to us and seemed to evaporate.

Harvest started good at end of September thanks to some earlier variety beans and wheat got sowed in a timely manner.

Again not many pics as I wanted to put the whole year behind me.

Finishing up combining beans.

A pic of my LED SMV flashing showing the brightness of the triangle border.

In October I had an accident on the farm. I toughed it out for the final 4 weeks of harvest and managed to get finished. I will make a post about that in the Café and link it here for those that are interested.

https://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=911549

In short that affected me a great deal and I was reluctant to discuss it or share any details.

Some of you inquired what was going on while I have been away and knew what all had happened but I asked that it not be divulged publicly.

I have been reading along and emailing things to people when I felt that I could help. I still encourage everyone to list an email address in your profile. You have no idea how many people posted things that I felt I could have helped them with information but had no way of getting in contact with them privately. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable listing an email address? Fine get a free throw away separate from your main one if you are worried about spam. You never know what you might miss out from the silent membership here.

The attitude on here seems to have changed lately with more folks making smart remarks and running others down if you hold a different view or try and bring up a different viewpoint or educate about something.

I miss the more helpful style of the earlier days where there was more emphasis on helping with whatever problem or issue was presented without immediately suggesting someone upgrade to something different instead. 

I’ve decided to not post in TPP anymore and will try to only limit my posts to where I feel I have something to share or where I am able to help or have a question on something.  I still wonder at times whether it's even worth it to continue to post, some of my stuff seems unappreciated/ridiculed at times. I guess we will see how it goes moving forward.

Thanks to all for listening and indulging this long posting.