DPH

Before: Can't really tell, but the duals are banded together. I didn't care for that. After: I stole the tires from a JD 4455 in 64th scale

Yes it is. It is basically a MacDon header with CaseIH logos on it. It is a much better header than the 30' JD header he used to have.

Sorry did not know that. I'll try to remember.

Believe it or not, wheat is comming out of the fields here in Louisiana. I had a break from finals this week so I went take a peek. These are pictures from my cousin\'s farm in Ville Platte, LA.

This is what goes on in South Louisiana during March and April to prepare the fields for rice planting. Chisel is run over the old soybean ground. 9220 and STX 375HD on waterlevelers Sometimes you gotta repair a washed out levie. Then ditches are made to help the water flow evenly. Down the road, another farmer is using a slightly different method. He\\\'s running the buffalo over the ground to smash the stubble and grass and turn over some mud. Later he comes with the waterlevelers.

That is not how all rice is harvested. Some is cut with a conventional rotary header.

That is a neighbor from another city on youtube. I've talked to him on another forum. Waterleveling is going on right now, I hope to get pictures soon.

Mid September has brought our first taste of highs below 90 degrees since May. It has also brought our first taste of hurricane season. We got 4-5 inches from Humberto last Thursday. There was very little wind damage, some areas the soybean plants are leaning but nothing was flatened. Now that the water has dried up, we are getting back to work. We've had the 9220 hooked to the green disk. We've been working to disk up some old ruts left behind from rice harvest. With the price of Wheat and soybeans rising lately, I've decided to plant more next year. We've already disked up about 320 acres of old rice stubble, and all of it plus some of the old soybean land will go into wheat, with a soybean double crop for next year. Our planting tools need to be prepared to plant some wheat. We will probably start early October. We started cutting soybeans last week. They were still a little green when Humberto hit, so we weren't in a huge hurry to get the combine back into the field. But now that the ground is dry we are back at it. Taking the levee road to the back of the field. That is the best starting point. Meanwhile, I had someone on the 9220 running the disk a second time through the old rice stuble. Catching the headlands after he was done. Thats all for now. Questions/Comments welcome.

Yes our carts are a little smaller then some you see, but they can still get two hoppers in them.

These are pictures of Louisiana Rice Harvest 2007.

As we approach the hottest days of summer, we are preparing to try and get the rice out of the fields. The fields have been draining for a while now and are as dry as they'll get with all the rain. Meanwhile we've been getting the combine, headers, and carts out of the sheds to get them ready. Got Craig to bring the combine out while I brought the header. I had brought the IH yesterday with the grain trailer expecting to start today. Put the header on and did a round to take a moisture test. He unloaded in the truck and I took the sample. It tested 18%, so its good enough to cut, we just have to dry it in the bins. I sent for Brandon and Bobby to bring the carts out to the field so we could get going. We just about filled the truck, carts and combine before we called it quits. Back at it in the morning though. Spilled a little trying to unchoke the auger on the cart. Thats all for now. Questions/Comments Welcome

Oh thats a Great Plains drill. I wanted it to be a 30' but it came out to big. I don't have any specific model number for it.

Things are drying fast. We got a break though, yesterday and day before we had some good showers come through and even brought a little taste of actual spring weather with it. It's cooled off enough to make things comfortable for the next day or two. There was only one field that needed to be disked first before the other implements could run in, so Bobby ran the disk through this field twice to try to get rid of all the weeds and old rice stubble. Since Im working with the stx on something else, the 9270 now has to switch duties and take over the bedleveler. So I had Bobby high tail it home to switch his tools. Dwayne arrives shortly after with the cultivator. Before he is even finished, Bobby shows up with the bedleveler. Had to tell him not to rush, don't want to burn any berrings on the crumbler, they are not fun to change and we can't afford to loose anymore time. We managed to get the large drill back in shape to finish the bean crop. The 4755 and six row will still run in the small fields that are only about an acre or two. I took control of the stx so that I could finish leveling the field we started a few weeks ago. I started with the dirt bucket to cut the larger uneven spots. Then I switched to the waterleveler to scrape some of the lesser prominant spots. Things finally got two dry to plant, so Dwayne is just going to run the cultivator over the rest of the fields. Meanwhile I sent Bobby to get the small disk and run it over the spots where the levees go, so that I can have a clear mark to run with. I would like to start something here to tie in MyWebsite with my journals. I have put extra pictures on MyWebsite and a blog called Lagniappe. I will try to do this for every journal if I can. http://dphinton2003.toytractortimes.com/mywebsite/news.php?story=374 Thanks for Looking Questions/Comments welcome.

It is a John Deere 7410.

After a long time with little or no rain, we finally got a good rain Thursday and some Friday morning. Now that things have dried a little, we have decided to get the planters rolling. We had to unhook the dirt bucket and waterleveler from the 9220 and STX. We switched the 9270 back onto the green disk because of some burnt berrings that we don't have time to change. Brandon put the bedleveler on the STX, while Bobby put the cultivator back onto the 9220. We still have some work to do on the planter, so until its ready we put the six row on the 4755 to put some seed in the ground. We started with a small field that we let grow over last year. Without a year of tillage, we had to run the disk twice. The second time around, I had Bobby run the field diagonally, hopping to break some of the bigger clods. Dwayne was on the 9220 running the cultivator. Brandon shows up with the STX on the bedleveler. Finally some of the bigger clods began to fall appart. Finally Craig runs the planter on the 4755. I don't ussually like to plant with the soil looking this rough, but time is not on our side as it will soon dry up again. We still have about 750 acres left to plant now. Thats all for now. Questions/Comments Welcome.

Here some pictures my sister snapped for me from her backyard. This was an old crawfish lake that was drained to plant some rice. Enjoy.

That field is most likely going to be planted with soybeans. Apparently Ville Platte hasn't been getting as much rain as where Im living now.

After our freak cold snap for easter, things began to dry up again fast, even with showers in between. We've finished planting the rice, and Dwayne has been on the 6910 capping the levees to hold the water in. Bobby has been in the 9270 disking down the rest of the rice stubble from last year. Brandon has been on the 7210 tearing down the levees. Bobby still has to disk down the levees to flatten them out a little more. With the dry weather, we decided to take the opportunity and lazer level one of our fields that hasn't been leveled in a while. Craig hooked the waterleveler to the stx, but it was decided to use the other waterleveler since this one needed too much work for now. We put the 9220 on the scraper. Here is Dwayne looking it over. We decided not to put the lazer on it because of time. Working out in the field. Shutting down for the day. Thats all for now Questions/Comments Welcome.

Haven't been in the fields since harvest so today I went back home to get some pictures. Wasn't much, but it was what I could get. I wanted to get a picture of the 9270 down the road but my camera died. Hope you enjoy.

Thanks Tim, I have to agree. This one was certainly the most fun to do. I really like how it turned out.

Thanks for all the previous comments. Its good to finally be able to have time to do some of this stuff again. Had a very busy past few months, but I think Im finally back on track.

We have still been enjoying warmer days and nights. However now the temps are in the mid 80's, and its starting to feel like early summer. Also, with the warmer weather and spring comes another problem, the lack of rain. We haven't had a good rain in a few weeks so we are anxious to get as much of the rice in the ground as possible. We decided it was time to plant a 50 acre field that had rice last year. We didn't get to plow under the rice straw, so it needed a lot of work. First, since we are done with all of the water work, I had Dwayne and Bobby bring the bufallo and chisel back to the bins. While they were gone, Craig and I started checking over the wing disk and bedleveler. One of the tires on the bedleveler was low so we had to air it up, and we are having a problem with one of the hydraulic lines. The left wing keeps going trying to go down on its own. Here are our two Freightliners. They are back from hauling the last of the rice to Texas, and are waiting to head back to Killa's customs to have more work done on the trailers. We unhooked the buffalo and chisel, and got to work getting the cultivator out of the shed. I am definitly parking this in a different space. It is too hard to get it out with that power pole there. After some fuel and a check up it was ready to go. I sent Dwayne out first with the disk. The weeds took over during the winter in this field. I hired another worker for the farm, because someone always ended up with two tasks making things harder. The new guy, Brandon, was sent on the 9220 with the cultivator to try to bury some of those weeds and loosen the soil. I showed up to give him directions to the next field. I had Bobby spread the rice from the dump cart. At the end of the day, he complained about the sunburn, but that comes with the job. Finally, Craig showed up with the bedleveler to bury the seed. After the small ditches are made, and the seeds start to sprout, we will open up the wells in this field. After this field, that only leaves about 250 acres left to plant, then we'll start getting ready for the soybeans. Questions/Comments Welcome.

Temperatures have turned spring like. The meteorologist promised that our last bite of winter was this past week. We've been in mid 70's during the day, and with the absense of rain, some of our fields have begun to dry. The pecan trees have begun to bloom, which to a Louisiana rice farmer is a sure sign that its time to plant rice. The crop dusters have begun spraying the seed over the fields that we've waterleveled so far. About 3 days after the seed is spread, we began draining the fields. We noticed that one of our higher fields is dry enough to begin the tillage for our Clearfield (dryplant hybrid) rice. I had Bobby hook the 9270 up to the green disk and make sure everything was in order. We got the 6910 ready on the fertilizer spreader, while Craig brought the 9220 to the shed to retrieve the bedleveler. Dwayne showed up later with the 7210 to hook up the drill. Everything was brought back to the shop for an inspection. Not much work was needed on the bedleveler. Meanwhile I sent Bobby with the 9270 to start disking up the old soybean stubble. Dwayne showed up later on the 6910 to spread some fertilizer before the bedleveler passed. Finally Craig showed up with the 9220 and bedleveler to make the final tillage pass before the drill. This is a nice tool because it crumbles up the bigger clods of dirt. Finally at about sunset, Dwayne showed up again, this time with the drill. (I realize the drill may be big for the 7210, but it is really meant to be a 30' drill. I am working on plans to build a 30' tri fold later this year) After the drill is passed we will build up some levees, and start flooding the field once the plants sprout. Thats all for now. Questions/Comments Welcome.

Thanks for the comments guys. This is the result of a year of brainstorming and about 2 months of prep and building b/t 32 hrs at work and 14 hrs at school.

After about a month of rain every two days and very cold weather (by our standards) the sun has finally showed his face. Temps have been in the 70's for the last two days and the water sitting in the field has made it perfect to start our rice work for the year. There were still adjustments to be made to the equipment. After the chisel plow was set, I had Dwayne fuel up the 9270. It will be running the chisel over most of the old soybean land and land without ruts. Craig went out with the stx and the buffalo/chisel combo to run over some of the old rice field fields we left ruts in last year during harvest. This is tough even for the 375 horses on the stx. After Craig finished, he went back to the farm to switch the waterleveler back on the stx. Bobby was already on his way to the field with the 9220 and waterleveler. Dwayne finally got to the field. This was some of the old soybean ground from last year. Unfortunatly, when we move from cut to cut, we have to fold up the wings on the chisel so it takes up some time, but 15 years ago, we wouldn't have been able to even plow in the water. Meanwhile, the others started waterleveling the field that was buffaloed earlier. While waterleveling, levees tend to bust, so I had to come with the 4755 and repair the levees as they broke. After the field was waterleveled, we sprayed some fertilizer over it with the crop dusters. Thats all for now. Questions/Comments welcome.