Posts Tagged With: Case IH

Home Team

Posted on May 15, 2015 by daddystractor

Despite being a fan of the hashtag #ForeverRoyal, I’ve never really jumped on the bandwagon of our championship Kansas City baseball team. But even though sports aren’t my thing, you will find me cheering loudly for a farmer’s “home team.”

In the world of agriculture the rivalry between Case IH and John Deere is as hotly disputed as the Yankees versus the Red Socks. I’ve never posted a picture of my family proudly posing in Case IH red without receiving a few helpful comments from people who would take up arms for John Deere’s signature green.

My blog. My rules.

And like sports rivalries, it’s all in good fun.

Mostly. 🙂

While there are other players on the field, (Kubota, New Holland) John Deere and Case IH represent the two largest makers of farm equipment. They manufacture huge tractors to lawn mowers, combines, planters, etc.. They also often represent different ways to solve a problem. Like a few years ago when the big push was to reduce emissions in tractor engines the two companies went in very different directions. But often as not a farmer’s allegiance has more to do with what his grandfather bought!

John Deere is a great American success story, with a bankrupt blacksmith opening a new shop and solving a major problem for Midwestern farmers. When demand for his self-scouring steel plow outgrew his little shop he opened a factory– then another and another. During the depression, the story goes, John Deere did not repossess a single piece of equipment from farmers going through hard times. And thus John Deere loyalty was born.

Case’s following was earned in a different way. The company began as a maker of steam engines and has bought and acquired various companies like Farmall and International Harvester along its not-quite 200 year journey. The history isn’t as easy to trace, but its commitment from customers can often be found in its prices. Most often you’ll hear farmers saying “I can’t afford to pay more for green paint.” If John Deere is Apple then Case would be Android.

Actually, I’d say the rivalry between farm companies is even more intense than sports teams. When was the last time you invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on a sports team and then depended on them for your livelihood?

So root for your home team. Leave a comment and tell me to whom are you #ForeverLoyal.

#IAmCaseIH #NothingRunsLikeADeere

Categories: Family, Farming | Tags: Case IH, green, John Deere, red, tractors | 5 Comments

This Situation is Critical!

Posted on April 14, 2014 by daddystractor

It’s literally the most important thing that happens on our farm and it’s happening now! Just ask the little red hen, if you want to eat the bread, first you have to plant the seeds!

Our Case IH tractor pulls a John Deere planter– proof that it can be done! 🙂

Planting time is the most intense season on the farm. There are an estimated 10 days that are just right for planting corn in our area. Even if we had perfect conditions (which we won’t) and no break downs (that won’t happen either!) there is no way we could plant all our corn in 10 days. But we try.

Daddy has added lots of Precision Planting parts to the planter, making sure every seed counts!

During the first two days of our planting season the tractor ran around the clock. Grandpa traded off with Daddy in the middle of the night so Daddy could get a few hours of sleep.

Anna helps Daddy check that the planter is working by digging up a row and looking at the seeds.

It’s also not just putting seeds in the ground that is so time-sensetive. Daddy got out of bed a the usual time the next morning so Grandpa could put on fertilizer and crop protection products, which are every bit as critical.

Daddy drove away with a piece of pizza in hand– no time to stop for dinner!

Monsoon-like rains put an end to our field work late Saturday night and this morning there is snow on the ground. Like I said, we won’t be getting ideal weather! The weather man says we should be in the mid 60s again in two days with lots of wind as well, so the ground will dry out and we’ll be back in the fields. While not ideal by any means, the snow shouldn’t stop the seeds from growing once the weather warms up.

Just please weather, do warm up!

Categories: Family, Technology | Tags: Case IH, corn, farm family, John Deere, modern farmer, planter, planting, tractor | 6 Comments

Farm to Store

Posted on February 12, 2014 by daddystractor

Celebrating Thank a Farmer week is done like most American holidays– it lasts a whole week and has a lot to do with food! Saturday was the pancake breakfast, then raffling off a grocery store gift certificate, and, new this year, we parked a tractor at the local store!

Thank a Farmer and Thank Early’s Tractor Dealership!

Thanks to the tractor dealership in town for letting us use one of theirs since it was already clean and only a few blocks from the store! Tractors generally go less than 25/mph, so that’s pretty helpful! Thanks to the county Farm Bureau board members who volunteer their time to set up these functions. Thanks to the grocery stores that work with and support the farming community. And of course, thanks to the farmers who are responsible from everything in those stores from the bananas to the macaroni and cheese to the plastic used to package it all!

Check in tomorrow for the next Thank a Farmer post. We’re thanking Daddy for something pretty exciting!

Categories: Food | Tags: agvocate, Case IH, food, grocery store, thank a farmer, tractor | 1 Comment

Did You Know? Fueling a Combine

Posted on October 7, 2013 by daddystractor

There are several reason you won’t see this at your local Casey’s. Um, very often.

Obviously, most gas stations have a shelter over the pumps that would seriously get in the way of a piece of equipment this size. And gas stations tend to be either in towns or along highways and not convenient to slow moving vehicles in fields in remote locations.

So how do you fuel all that harvest equipment?

With your own fuel tank.

Our farm has those giant fuel barrels filed with dyed fuel (for farm vehicles only), but they stay at the farm’s home base. This trailer is a newly-traded addition to Daddy’s collection which allows him to haul fuel right to the combine.

So much easier than pulling up to the pump at Quick Trip!!

This trailer has two pumps, just like the ones you’d use to fuel your car– except at little bigger. 😉 They wind up on a hose reel, which is what you see in the photo above.

The tanks are in the rear of the combine and you have to pull the hoses up the ladder to reach them. And while some pieces of farm equipment (semis) actually have two diesel tanks, that’s not why you see two hoses in these pictures.

The second, smaller, hose actually fills the combine with something called DEF. This fluid is the secret to making our red equipment environmentally green.

(If you’re interested in learning how this combine is reducing emissions into the air, try this previous post.)

So now you know. This is why you won’t see tractors or combines in line at the local Conoco. Very often…

Categories: Science, Technology | Tags: Case IH, combine, environment, harvest, technology | Leave a comment

Preparing for Harvest

Posted on September 23, 2013 by daddystractor

Can you feel it? Smell it? I’m even beginning to see it. That unquantifiable element that is fall. Everyone is pinning pumpkin recipes and buying apple butter at farm stands. I’m putting off my fall cleaning until, well, maybe spring… I love living where the seasons change and in one of those inexplicable phenomenons, the upcoming season is usually my favorite. But who doesn’t love fall?!

Unlike me, the farmers in my family love fall best all year long. Because fall means harvest.

Brett especially looks forward to harvest all year. It means long days in the combine –and snacks from Daddy’s magical lunchbox! He’s so excited about it, in fact, that he begged to help wash the combine like our hired hand, Cory, was doing. Daddy said he was actually a big help and really did a good job getting the dirt and grime off of the equipment.

Today Daddy will run the combine on the field next to the shed to get the engine hot enough to change oil and hydraulic oil and maybe calibrate the combine to correctly calculate yield. He’ll set up the monitors, resupply the tool boxes, check the air conditioner, and any other of a thousand odd jobs that are involved in preparing for harvest.

Then tomorrow we begin!

Categories: Technology | Tags: Case IH, combine, harvest | 5 Comments

Take a Tour of the Tractor

Posted on April 29, 2013 by daddystractor

We’d love to have you come out to the farm sometime and take a ride in the tractor. Especially now that spring planting is finally underway! You could watch the monitors, observe the planter action, and bump over the terraces with us, if only you could make it out our way. But if you can’t, don’t worry, because today I’m inviting you to take a tour of the tractor without ever leaving your computer!

As you climb up the stairs one of the first things you’ll notice is the handle on the bottom of the door. It may seem odd, but you couldn’t reach it if it were placed in the middle like a car door!

The next thing you’ll notice is the pedals. Why? Because they will be eye level as you climb!

The one on the left is the clutch, the one on the right is the brake. The little one in the middle adjusts the steering wheel. The yellow is a decelerator pedal. You may notice there is no gas pedal. Instead the tractor moves forward by using the clutch, throttle and the orange forward/reverse lever here behind the steering wheel. Kinda crazy, huh?

And since we’re now sitting here in the driver’s seat, take a look to the right.

Here you see screens, monitors, control panels, ipad, and smart phone all working together to gather data about what’s happening in the field. Pretty cool! Find out more about our modern tractor technology in this previous post.

Actually, this side of the tractor has so many buttons and knobs they even store some under the arm rest!

Above you are the climate controls and stereo.

To the left you can enjoy the convenience of cup holders, or…. the buddy seat! Loved by farm families world-wide, this fold down table pops up to hold a child. Or two. Or three!

And behind you is the back window, complete with a pull-down sun shade.

And if you’d care to climb back down, I’ll show you the outside!

Behind the tractor lots of cables and wires attach from the planter.

This pic show how the planter hooks up to the tractor with a three-point hitch.

Take a look under the hood, but first you’ll have to climb up the steps, maybe even climb up a tire!

Case used the space under the step to store a toolbox. Having all the tools you need to fix break downs right in the field is critical since timing is so important to spring planting.

Just a peek under the hood– there is so much stuff under there it would take a whole other post to tell you about it! Hmmm, actually that sounds like an idea! Would you like to stop by again soon?

Categories: Technology | Tags: Case IH, planting, technology, tour, tractor | 9 Comments

A Book for Your Tractor Lesson

Posted on March 28, 2013 by daddystractor

You know that great feeling when you stumble on something great completely by accident? I have it today! We were at the library looking for books for school, which means I’m scribbling down reference numbers and chasing children’s books from all their misplaced places, when the title of this book caught my eye.

Being “Daddy’s Tractor” of course, we had to check this one out. And we’ll probably renew it too! Its a whimsical book with bright illustrations and a bit of nostalgia for the by-gone era of small family farms. Grandpa takes his grandson out to the old homestead, now fallen into decay. There they find a forgotten (red!) Farmall tractor growing up with weeds.

Please note that Farmall is a predecessor to Case IH. And if you don’t know what Case IH is, kindly refer to the photos in the blog title. And for all of you cheering for green and yellow, just allow me this moment. It is hard for all of us in ag to find truly good literature, but do you know how hard it is to find books with red tractors?!

But back to the actual point… Grandpa tells his grandson all about the work the tractor used to do on the farm when he was a boy, making this book a fantastic addition to our History of Agriculture Theme Unit.

The author/illustrator is not a farmer (or even remotely connected with ag in any way) and it was not written to be a scientifically, historically, or otherwise perfectly accurate portrait of farm life, but I thought Michael Garland did a nice job and avoided any of the usual mistakes of drawing all roosters instead of hens etc.. And the story of how this book came to be, featured on the last page, is probably my favorite part of all.

So now you can be as excited as I am :-).

Categories: Homeschool, Thematic Unit | Tags: Case IH, history, homeschool, language arts, lesson, social studies, themes, tractor | 2 Comments

Off the Farm Fun

Posted on February 18, 2013 by daddystractor

Whew! What a great weekend! We just got back from one of our favorite farm family events, the Missouri Farm Bureau Young Farm and Rancher conference. Its held in south Missouri at a resort on the Lake of the Ozarks, with classes for mom and dad, pool and activities for the kids, AND… moving stairs. Or electric stairs. Call them what you’d like, just as long as you let the kids go up them. And down them. And up them. And down them… It was the highlight of their week. Maybe their year.

For the last few years Brian and I have served on the committee in charge of putting the conference together. But we retired from that position in December and this year we just got to ENJOY! It was lots of fun, especially the part about ~~going up the escalator~~ attending with our close friends! We came home with too many great ideas, bit of popcorn in with the dirty laundry, and even a 1st place ribbon from the children’s tractor pull!

He worked really hard and didn’t give up, even though he didn’t understand why the tractor was so hard to pedal. Brett wasn’t alone in this confusion. My favorite moment (maybe of the entire weekend) was a little boy in the four year old division who grew frustrated and complained loudly that the John Deere tractor wasn’t working right. They needed to go home and get his International tractor, which worked much better! Go Big Red! And just to even things out a bit, here’s Anna viewing one of the many babies who attended the conference.

Babies are almost as much fun as escalators.

I hope to go through our stuff today and prepare a post with the lessons and activities the Promotion and Education department did with the kiddos. Brett had a blast, so you know it was great stuff! Coming soon!

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In other news, our baby chicks should arrive this week. They ship Wednesday, so I’m hoping Thursday but certainly by Friday anyhow. I’ll be posting pics as soon as I get them settled. Love this part!!