Old Iron in Star Valley

Tag: John Deere 2010

  • Rolling Alfalfa with the Farmall F-30 N

    Rolling Alfalfa with the Farmall F-30 N

    Each spring we cultivate alfalfa fields. This is typically done with some sort of danish harrow (spring tooth), drag harrows, and a heavy liquid-filled roller. This is due to our long winters and the damage that is done to the alfalfa fields, as well as the large amounts of rocks that we have in our fields.

    On a typical setup, the cultivator levels out the mice mounds and breaks up last years stubble. Then, the roller flattens it out and pushes down rocks, as to make the field less bumpy and to have less rocks for the swather (windrower, mower, or whatever your area calls them) to have less rocks to damage the cutting bar. However, this alfalfa field was only planted last year. Due to the plants being young and the roots not deep, we don’t use a digger on the fields for the first full year of the crop growth.

    That being said, needing to only pull the roller made for a great excuse to get out and use one of the old tractors. Where the F-30 hasn’t had a lot of tasks on the farm as of yet, we thought it’d be a perfect opportunity to put it to work and have a few hours of enjoyable (though bumpy) seat time. It also made for a good opportunity to take some photos and videos. The video also contains a John Deere 2010 Utility, which we eventually finished out the field with.

    Rolling Spring Alfalfa with the Farmall F-30

  • Raking Alfalfa with the G and 2010

    This video is of the John Deere G and John Deere 2010 raking alfalfa. It also has some slow-motion video. Because the large baler needs to be fed so much hay, and the hay needs to be turned to dry, we rake the two rows together. Eventually it will be nice to have a twin rake that does it both in one pass. In the meantime, this is what we have–one or two tractors that rake and roll the hay together. The slow-motion of the iPhone 5s is kind of fun to watch as well.

  • 1st Crop of Alfalfa 2014

    This video is about Harvesting the Alfalfa 1st Crop 2014. It goes from cutting the crop with a pull behind John Deere 945 MoCo Windorower (swather), Raking it with an old John Deere 2010 and side-delivery rake (retro, but when you are starting out from scratch, that’s what you have to do), and baling it with a John Deere 4640 and Hesston 4790 large square baler. Hauling with a John Deere 4230 and 1972 4020 with a front-end loader. Some of the video is shot with a Parrot AR.Drone, which, despite its lack in quality, gives some pretty neat shots.

  • Feeding Cattle & Spring Update

    Sometimes feeding cattle can be more than just driving out to the cows and dropping off hay.  For instance, watching hawks fly by and Sandhill Cranes walk around the field looking for some leftover food (grains) left over by the cattle.

    This spring has been an interesting one.  Although the snow is gone in the video, as of today we still have a few inches… We received about six inches yesterday, which isn’t very unusual for this area.  Summer will arrive just in time for fall, and then back into winter.  We don’t know if we’ll receive a summer, but we’ve never missed a winter!

  • October Through December 2012 Photo Journal

    I finally got around to finishing the photo journal 2012.  As you may notice, there are many photos of me feeding cattle.  That’s because with the days as short as they were, my schedule basically consisted of going to work, coming home and feeding the cows, then getting home just in time for it to get dark.

  • Shuffling around the Classic JDs

    I had to get something out from the back of the barn, and that meant pulling out all of the classic tractors…  Since I had them all out on a cold wintery day, I thought that would be a good opportunity to get a quick little video of them running.  What you can see is a 1939 John Deere A, 1947 John Deere A, 1949 John Deere B, 1963 John Deere 2010, and 1972 John Deere 4020.