Every once in a great while my Dad calls me up and asks for help.  This weekend was one of those times, I didn’t get there as quick as I should have but I made it for a few hours Saturday and the entire time the COOP was open on Sunday.

My Dad had me come down and haul loads into town, Plainfield in this case. It is one of the easiest, if not most exciting job around.  Basically, it entails:

1. Driving a tractor and wagons either out to a field or up to a bin to be filled.
2. Driving them into to town where the whole setup is weighed and the moisture is tested.
3. Dumping the grain into the COOPs storage.
4. Getting weighed again and picking up the result slip.
5. Driving home and doing it all again.

Sounds pretty straight forward.  The trip to Plainfield is only about 5 miles, the catch is that 800 bushels of corn at 56lbs a bushel plus the tractors and wagons weighs a lot.  This limits reasonable speed to about 15mph otherwise the rear wagon starts wandering around – a scary thing given it weighs at least 23,000 lbs.  As you can see from the pictures, once unloaded the tractor can be run with the throttle to the floor in the highest gear – a blazing 20 miles per hour!  It makes the round trip take a little over an hour.

It was a good weekend.

–Nat