From the thawing parlor pit 2-11

[jrsiajdranch]

Well as I came back into my house I saw the thermometer and it said 20 degrees!  YIPEE!  chores went well this morning and we will be able to get a few things done today.  Isn't it amazing how things change?  Last fall when we got our first 20 degree day we all felt like icicles. Today we think of it as a heat wave! 

Prices for commodities are the same. It's all about perspective. 1988 was my first real farming experience. I had a chance rent 80 acres. that fall I planted 15 acres of wheat and the next year I planted the balance to corn.  My first wheat harvest was pretty good with my wheat going about 65 bu. I hired the neighbor to combine it for me and I remember he combined it and hauled it to town 6 miles all for 200 bucks.( i think he gave me a little break) I sold that wheat for 2.23 a bu, and thought I had done real well!  My land rent was 65 dollars an acre!  I paid all the bills associated with that and I had 300 dollars left over! When you are 17 that was a lot of money!   I felt real good about the yield and the price. When I went into get my check Jim who owned the elevator there in town came out and printed off the check.  Before he gave it to me he talked to me about maybe storing that wheat. and some other business to do with that wheat . Brian who was a neighbor and a pretty big farmer at the time talked to me like a peer.  I stood there for a minute and just savored the chance to be on equal footing with all these farmers on that hot July day. 

Some of the old-timers were sitting in there also.  They began to talk about their first wheat crop and how they remembered old pull type combines with 6 foot heads that they pulled with F 20' to harvest their first crop. At 17 when I got home I couldn't hardly keep my chest inside my shirt. I drove home from the elevator in my old Dodge PU With my window down arm hanging outside the truck listening to that new country artist Garth Brookes. I found dad  showed it to Him. He smiled and listened as I gave all my reasons for selling and not storing and why I thought the mkt. was going lower Man I didn't have a clue! still don't). But that Brian said I shoulda stored.  And how Larry one of the old-timers said he could remember selling wheat for 35 cents.  Dad said I remember that too.

Fast forward to today. We some times get all caught up in this business the x's and O's the cost of production or the ROI. We think about our position now and where we are going to be in ten years. And don't get me wrong those things are important.  But I hope as we start to warm up here and guys start thinking about hooking up to the planters and moving out grain from snow bound grain bins. Well I hope you enjoy yourselves just a little bit.  And remember some of your favorite crop years or your first time selling hogs,or cattle, or milk.

All the world over there are riots today over food insecurity. And each of us gets to raise our worlds food.  Doesn't that just amaze you when you think about it? 

In the dairy mkts. things are going wild. Weird weather has started to have a negative impact on southern production Record cold in places not accustomed to freezing weather has begun to cut into supply. I am also hearing that there is a lot of damage to the hay crops in the south. Any body here confirm that?

So yesterday blocks closed up again at $1.9125  barells closed at $1.90!  class 3 milk is $18.56 for march.

All this is very encouraging lets hope it actually get to the farm soon. BE safe JR

[nwobcw]

I remember 1980 very well.  My 1st year doing it all myself after Dad passed away.  Up until 2007 and last year it was also my most profitable year.  I'm sure there were some bad farming years in that time span but I don't remeber them as well as the good ones.

[k-289]

JR--Just a thought on the topic of spring coming--was visiting with my banker in Fremont Ne. back in the 80's and he told of the story of how to end winter and have spring come "really fast"------go to bank on" january 2" and take out a "90 day note" and spring will be here before you know it ! !  Enjoy the warm up--we are !

[GoredHusker]

As I get move along through life, I find myself reading and paying a lot closer to detail.  I remember when the first computers were coming out and their lack of ability.  I felt great making my first worksheets on lotus.  It was the same with the internet and how it balooned into something far greater than I ever imagined.  Information from one part of the World is available almost instantly.  Since the report has come out, I have found and read a lot of articles making national and World headlines dealing with corn and corn prices.  While the articles are informative and in some cases entertaining, the real enjoyment comes from reading all of the comments about the article.  A couple of days ago, yahoo had a story about corn.  However, they had written in the story that ethanol demand had gone up eight percent which was going to lead to over 13 billion bushels of corn being used for ethanol this year.  It's things like this that make me ponder about how much misinformation we're fed by the national media with regards to subject matter that we're not directly involved.  The 13 billion bushel remark probably didn't get caught as being an error unless it was by a farmer or someone in the ethanol industry.  I think most here recognize that bushels should have been gallons considering our entire corn crop wasn't even 13 billion bushels.  Today, I'm reading another article about corn when I came across this little trinket in the story:  "So whatever land farmers are devoting to corn now just means that much more land to be "left fallow or converted to wheat or alfalfa or something else next year," said Christopher Ecclestone, a strategist at Hallgarten & Company LLC."  While I can't speak for every area, we have fields here that haven't had anything but corn planted on them annually for over three decades. 

I guess the point of all of this is especially after reading all the comments at the bottom of these stories is how much wrong information there is out there.  I wonder how far astray I've been led over my lifetime from being fed incorrect information from the media over the years?  It gets me to wondering about things such as what do the Germans teach in their history classes with regards to WWII?  In Japan, what do their history books say about Pearl Harbor?  In England, what do they teach with regards to the Revolution and Tea Party?  In years to come, what will the rest of the World be teaching in their history classes with regards of the U.S. ethanol policy?  Are they going to reference some of these articles that are filled with fallacies?

[nwobcw]

   Very vaild point you have.  When I used to work off the farm co-workers would say "why do you plant? The gov't. will pay you to leave it ALL lay and then all you (me) have to do is wait for the check"  Where does 1 start to answer logic such as that?