Life on the Farm

[GlisGlis]

Netherland (and other european countries) regulations is mainly targeting nitrogen emissions from animals farming and it's aimed to meet EU deadlines for environmental protection.
From what I understand netherlands comes from a situation of very low regulations and ultra high density of animals that produced out of standards rates of pollution.

What I like alot about BJ is that it shows that he loves his land and he try to improve and take care of it while he run his business.
It's not about taking the max out of it regardless the consequences.

[GlisGlis]

just read BJ previous post and totally agree on electrical devices and waste of still valid objects

[bjrogg]

Thank You GlisGlis

I think most farmers share my love of the land and animals they care for. I think most want to leave their farms in better condition than it was when they started farming it.


We don’t all necessarily see that happening the same way, but I do believe it is a shared goal of the majority of farmers.

It’s always nice to be able to have conversations that the participants actually are allowed to express their thoughts. And participants listen to others thoughts. There’s always at least two sides to every argument. And they aren’t always one side is right and the other side is wrong.

A case could even be made for the petroleum industry saving the whale. Oil wasn’t first used for gasoline . It was a dangerous, explosive byproduct. They wanted oil for lamps to light houses and streets. Oil that replaced whale blubber oil that had been used for lightning.

Gasoline, diesel fuel, plastics and hundreds of other products were simply byproducts of producing the oil for lighting our homes.

Bjrogg

PS I’m thinking we will still need a lot of those products and wondering. Will we be left again with a dangerous explosive byproduct?

[Eric Krewson]

I agree about diesels, I had a 2006 F250 with the 6.2 liter engine, that thing sounded like a metal bucket half full of rocks being shaken when it ran, the exhaust smell was horrendous. When we traveled a bumper to bumper 11-mile scenic loop in the Smokies I felt guilty about the exhaust fumes I was leaving behind to choke the people in cars behind us.  I traded this truck off at 90K miles because the engine had a habit of blowing at 100K.

I bought a 2013 with the new 6.7-liter engine, it started like a gas engine, doesn't make any diesel noise and has no detectable exhaust smell, pretty amazing.

My wife died, I sold my 5th wheel and only use the truck about once every two weeks. It garage kept, it only has 34K miles on it, it is paid for and I do need a truck every now and then, I think I will keep it.

[bjrogg]

Sounds like a nice truck Eric. Should be good for a couple hundred thousand miles yet.

We have been working at cleaning up equipment. Definitely not my favorite job, but it needs to be done.

We e have been doing this for a lot of years to and have figured out a few things that make it work better. It’s still a poor job though.

First we use a good heavy duty scraper to get the really big dirt off.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Then we use our water truck to blast the heavy stuff off.

We have a 3” pump we basically make into a monitor.

We reduce the 3” to 1 1/2” hose.

Then we reduce the 1 1/2” hose down and run it through a 1/2” ball valve.

This makes a high volume not so high pressure washer. It really moves heavy dirt.

We park it in our old bunker and the water filters and drains away leaving the heavy dirt on the concrete bunker floor. We clean up the dirt with our loader and reclaim it for our field.

We can get the big stuff off pretty pretty efficiently like this

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Next we use our high pressure hot water power washer to finish the job.

My arms are like noodles from scrapping and holding the power washer wand. We have so far had some pretty decent weather for washing. Today it’s going to start getting colder

Last night we took the entire beet digging crew out to eat. It’s always nice to be able to sit down, share a good meal and relive stories about the harvest. We really appreciate these people and this is one of the ways we show them that

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Oh almost forgot.

I did get a little time in my tree stand.

Sure was a beautiful evening to be sitting in a tree

Saw several deer. Nothing close enough though. My food plot really isn’t working out so we’ll. The deer ate it down to nothing and now they are liking my rye cover crop better. Oh well it’s still nice watching them and the sunset

Bjrogg

[Stoker]

A little time in the stand is a wonderful thing
Thanks for bringing us along
Leroy

[Pappy]

Beautiful sun set and time is the stand is always relaxing to me, deer or no deer.
 Pappy

[bjrogg]

Beautiful sun set and time is the stand is always relaxing to me, deer or no deer.
 Pappy

Thanks Pappy. Yes it certainly is relaxing. That’s one reason I like to hunt from the ground sometimes. I get a little to relaxed sometimes and I don’t want to wake up hanging from my tree.


23 degrees this morning and I didn’t wash anything yet.

Needed to get some stuff done on computer.

While I was at it I wrote down a few logistics from beet harvest

We had 336 loads from our fields ( I don’t have neighbors figured yet)

Company has our certified acres at 345.8

We delivered a net 11,355.52 tons of beets

We averaged 32.84 tons per acre.

Our average sugar content was 19.43

Raw sugar per ton was 291.94 lbs

That should make  3,315,130.51 lbs of sugar

Pretty good crop of beets especially considering the dry weather . We are happy with it

Bjrogg

[Buckskinner]

Beautiful sun set and time is the stand is always relaxing to me, deer or no deer.
 Pappy

Raw sugar per ton was 291.94 lbs

That should make  3,315,130.51 lbs of sugar

Pretty good crop of beets especially considering the dry weather . We are happy with it

Bjrogg

That is a lot of sugar!!! No wonder our nation is so obese!

[M2A]

Those are some big numbers BJ. Not sure I can comprehend a pile of anything that large We get juice apples trucked in from various states along the east coast, from large growers, and 1 tractor trailer with a dump bed will average about 50k lbs of fruit. Thats about as big of a number I can wrap my head around.
Time to start working for next season? lol
Mike     

[bjrogg]

Beautiful sun set and time is the stand is always relaxing to me, deer or no deer.
 Pappy

Raw sugar per ton was 291.94 lbs

That should make  3,315,130.51 lbs of sugar

Pretty good crop of beets especially considering the dry weather . We are happy with it

Bjrogg

That is a lot of sugar!!! No wonder our nation is so obese!

In moderation it’s all good. I don’t have a huge sweet tooth. I do prefer real natural sugar to the artificial sweeteners though. I personally don’t think that stuff is good for you. And I don’t think that’s just the sugar beet farmer in me, but I could be wrong.



Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Those are some big numbers BJ. Not sure I can comprehend a pile of anything that large We get juice apples trucked in from various states along the east coast, from large growers, and 1 tractor trailer with a dump bed will average about 50k lbs of fruit. Thats about as big of a number I can wrap my head around.
Time to start working for next season? lol
Mike   

Yes the sugar beet harvest and processing of the beets is a big number game for sure.

It always seems strange that a tall crop of corn looks huge. But even if you chop it for silage it’s still only about 2/3 as many tons per acre as the roots of the sugar beets.

I’m glad our sugar percentage is up this year.

Last year we had incredible tons. We averaged 44 tons per acre. Almost 25% more tons than this year. We ended up having to pay farmers to dispose of those extra tons as we couldn’t process them before they spoiled.

The sugar content was so low that we ended up producing the lowest amount of sugar in many years.

I’d much rather have 32 tons and 19.47 percent sugar than 44 tons and 15 percent sugar . Hopefully we can get these high quality beets processed. We are expecting to have them processed by mid March. That’s a pretty good ending date. Last year was mid April and we didn’t finish. We just disposed of the rest.

Bjrogg