Any of you been on Interstate 74?

Jpshostr · November 8, 2001

One of our main farms runs for a mile right alongside I-74. Actually, when the road went in they took 53 acres from us. The second to last day of bean havest I was in a field right next to it, thought this would be kind of interesting.

This is the bridge over I-74 that we go over many many times a day as our house is on the other side. You can't make much out, but all that is on the other side of the road is ours.

pacodiablo · November 8, 2001

jebus that is a lot of land!

Jpshostr · November 8, 2001

Quote from pacodiablo, posted on Nov. 08 2001,4:40

jebus that is a lot of land!

Well, this one farm is about 180 acres. A few more of it to give you an idea of its size. Sorry about the quality, combine windows were dirty!

pacodiablo · November 8, 2001

how many miles have you put on the combine?

silverado man · November 8, 2001

Paco combines dont have an odometer they read how many hours it has been running.

JP, wow you have some nice land, nice and flat. All of my dad's land is rolling hills.

chevy4x4trucks · November 8, 2001

Man, that is a big farm. One of my uncles has a 500 acre farm towards green bay. It's cool, he's got his own private lake on it and everything.

Jpshostr · November 9, 2001

Quote from silverado man, posted on Nov. 08 2001,5:03

Paco combines dont have an odometer they read how many hours it has been running.
JP, wow you have some nice land, nice and flat. All of my dad's land is rolling hills.

Paco, he is right. We measure in hours on farm equipment. The combine has about 2000 hours on it now, the tractors are anywhere from 3500-4500 hours.

Silverado Man, yes, this part is pretty flat, but we do have some fields that are a bit steeper than we'd like, have to use special cropping practices to help avoid soil erosion.

We have several sections of land, this is one of five different farms we run. This is our second main one, where the cows are in addition to a few buildings for storage.

Here is what the north end looks like compared to the south end shown above. As you can see, a bit more hilly.

pacodiablo · November 9, 2001

wow! 2000 hours!

Chev4Ever · November 9, 2001

Thats some nice lookin land.. Makes our 18 acres look small... LOL

bsguam · November 11, 2001

I grew up very close to I74.. What state are you in?

Stepside Z · November 11, 2001

Seems like the farming life is very complicated. That is alot to manage. I hope the harvest was profitable.

Jpshostr · November 11, 2001

Quote from bsguam, posted on Nov. 11 2001,07:03

I grew up very close to I74.. What state are you in?

Northwest Illinois

Stepside, harvest went great except for one thing, the crop is worth nothing once again. One gets easily discouraged when you work your butt off all year long and get great yields to show for your work, but you have to sell it for breakeven or very slightly better. One must not get into farming for the money, thats for sure, you have to have a love of doing it.