I discovered this thread recently and have spent hours reading through the pages. Some very nice pictures from everybody especially 98j and NIF. I love the old pull combines to rode on one as a kid but wasn’t old enough to operate one before we went to 55H and 95H combines at my parents place I believe there are some pictures of the old model 36 combine pulled by a 9u.
I will share a little about myself and I might get some pictures on here if I get smart enough might have to ask the kids to help.
I grew up on a farm and cattle operation on the camas prairie in Idaho not far from you NIF down between Melrose and Nezperce, started farming with my father and brothers in 1976 after college and farmed there until 2001 when my wifes brother had financial troubles on his farm here in the Palouse and I made the move and took over the farm with my two sons now helping me. I grow crops similar to NIF with a rotation mainly of winter wheat then peas or lentils with a occasional crop of spring wheat or barley to hold down disease pressure. I am 100% conventional tillage my brothers on the prairie have tried a direct seed system with mixed results but with the kind of residue we can get in the Palouse it can be more difficult and the disease and weeds get out of hand in a hurry. I do all the field work with cats mostly challenger 75d and 55 and steel tracked D5b 26x. The old 98j D5 and D4d 84j are used for light work when needed. My brothers and I always ran jd combines from 6602 up through 6622, 7722, 9632, and 9750. My brother in law had two 1470 ih combines when I took over but now I have a jd 9860 with a hillco leveler and 35ft flex header.
NIF I am familiar with your area I believe that the lower ground you have pictured and talk of would be on sunnyside bench and cream ridge? Looks like bedrock canyon near Southwick in some other pictures. And that’s Teakean Butte there above freeman creek road right? I have hunted elk there near Cavendish before the farmers there are glad to be rid of them out of the fields. Not sure of your name but I have hunted some timber on the land farmed by Lawrences, Yenni, and Nelsons you appear to be a bit south of them though.
We have been going in the fields early here to. Working ground mostly have not seeded anything yet top dressed the fertilizer and the wheat is starting to grow. Wheat is not looking perfect here but definitely ahead of yours, some nasty erosion ditches this January worst in many years it seems. You guys always seem to struggle with crops there within a few miles of you. Drove through in the summer before and the wheat was headed out from my place to Southwick and then was headed out again across the river from Peck to my brothers place. But not there through your area near Cavendish. Sort of a snowbelt and cold trap there between that mountain and the river. Your yields seem exceptional though compared to what I thought you guys normally did there the farmers I talked to sounded like 60 bushel winter wheat was about average. I also want to complement you on that spreadsheet with all your numbers and calculations. If you don’t mind could you fill me in on how you calculated some of them. Send me an email or give me a call if you prefer I sent my contact information in private message.
Also what variety of black peas are those you grow? Not grangers must be the old Fenn or Melrose (named after the little towns south of you)
My winter wheat yields since moving here 9 years ago have averaged 92 bushel over the years and that’s with deep loess soil a few thin clay knobs but not much rock.
I have probably said to much so I will stop. I will add that TadWicks was asking about hex cabs I built one myself once on a D6c no longer have it but have two on my older cats. I prefer them to the square cab style.

This thread keeps me coming back to this site in both the morning and evening. The pictures are what make the thread so great. I have used 98j’s photos of his harvester on the side hill for years as a screen saver. I believe that the screen saver photos were copied from farmphotos.com.

Both 98j and NIF are gifted at being able to frame a photo and get the lighting and contrasts just right. My question to either of you gentlemen is when you post the pictures how do you avoid the photo showing up as a thumb nail. I posted a question concerning an old D2 last night and the only way I found to post the picture was to attach the photos to my post using the format that is provided.

Since I farm in the northern Sacramento Valley (walnuts and almonds) all of the crawlers we used to run now reside in the barn for most of the year as they are not usually needed for orchard work. We did pull out an orchard 7U this year to pull a sprayer as it was wet and muddy when the almonds bloomed. Being Scotch I was not about to hire a helicopter.

Looking forward to seeing the photos of the planting and harvest from you guys this summer and fall. I hope Jack Cat Skinner is able to download his photos soon.

Atlas, were you working for Heidrick Farms? My brother and I still have a ranch southeast of Knights Landing (hog farm) along the river. Have the ranched leased out but I am down there several times a month as mom still lives in the Landing. If you have more photos from the Woodland area as I would love to see them.

IronAppraiser......I like that. I am using an image hosting site....in my case
Photobucket. I keep all of my pictures in their original large file size, then before I e-mail them or otherwise upload, I use Paint to downsize them to a manageable size. That way they upload faster ( esp. if you are on dialup) & they don't overwhelm the screen on the receiving end. Some sites (like Farmphoto) you can post up directly, but they have size limits. The file size
reduction that I do in Paint takes care of that. For a site like this one(ACMOC) I upload to Photobucket first, then it's a simple matter of pasting in the IMG code associated with each frame into the text and presto.......full size image.
An example. This shot of my D5 plowing started out at 2.4MB in size, 3888x2592 pixels. After running it through Paint it reduced to 247KB, 1167x778 pixels.(something that small you can ship to Aunt Edna on a dial up & it will finish uploading before Christmas ) Once it's at Photobucket, then I just paste in the IMG code:

This one......reduced from 3.3MB to 145 KB........

The Vista House on the Old Columbia River Highway just east of Portland,
taken 03/14/10 on our way back from a function in The Rose City.

Jack cat skinner- yes you are correct on locations, actually not on sunnyside bench but right above it below cream ridge. Yes the elk can be a problem in the legume crops, the guys you mentioned have problems right near the bottom of the mountain with all that timber close buy. Nilsons quit farming after harvest in 2003 and John Jr. went back to work for Caterpillar in the oilfields in Canada and ended up in Seattle as an engineer now I believe. John Sr. offered to rent us some of his land but we cant get there with the cats easily with the paved roads that direction.

Yes the 10 year county average for winter wheat is 58 bu and our farm is 81 bu. Part of it is because of our location we have pretty good ground for the most part and have tiled lots of wet spots, rotation plays a part as well. Some guys near here seem to have gotten lazy in recent years and dont get things done on time and take shortcuts like no-tilling wheat onto barley stubble. Several guys here that seem to be just coasting to retirement on CSP and CRC money and farming only to qualify for government handouts.

We dont take out CRC insurance or any of that, not much point because the county average is too low to ever get payment unless the price drops off like last year.

Black pea variety is the old commons, same variety grown in the 60s and earlier, we tried grangers back when they first came out around 1998 and they winterkilled.

Would be great to see some pics of your operation.



IronAppraiser- I use a picture method similar to 98J and host at tinypic.info where no account is needed, then just paste the link into the message and the pic shows up when posted.

You brought up a good point when you mentioned using pics as screensavers.

If anybody reading this wants to use any of my pictures for anything or share them with anybody, post them elsewhere etc. that is perfectly fine by me. I post them for people to enjoy not to make money so I have no problem having them spread around for other people to see.

Over here.......the elk fight over which one of them gets to bash over the next fence they come to & start munching on some nice tasty young wheat:

Shot these standing on the track of the D5 while plowing last April.

I was shooting a couple of frames of the spray plane at work on my wheat just west of the plowing.......just stepped out on the track to get a couple of
quick shots when these clowns showed up.......one of those right time right place deals.

Got the deal done on the plane too.

Hi IronAppraiser you are correct i did work for the Hedrick family during the sixties.and am a past CAL AGGIE. i will post some Woodland picks plus some of my uk past farming pics if any of you wish. all the best Atlas

Atlas, are you still in the Woodland area? I’m looking forward to seeing some more photos from you taken in that time frame. Until I saw the picture of you on the 7, I was under the impression that Heidrick’s numbered the sevens with three digits, seven being the first digit. The D-4’s, D-6’s and D-8’s were similarly numbered with the first digit indicating the class tractor. The three digit system must have come later, as the D-7 you are operating is clearly #69. I went to Chico State and graduated in ’76 from there with a degree in agriculture.

98j thanks for the information on your picture posting. I plan on trying some more photos this weekend. Following you and Northern Idaho Farmer with photos is a bit intimidating. Everyday I know when I visit this site I’m going to be impressed!

Along with the farming I appraise real estate for some of the local banks. The rice farmers still have some crawlers working so I will try to get some pictures this spring of there operations. The surrounding scenery in the north valley is not nearly as great as what NIF and 98j are working in and capturing on film.

"IronAppraiser" wrote:

Until I saw the picture of you on the 7, I was under the impression that Heidrick’s numbered the sevens with three digits, seven being the first digit. The D-4’s, D-6’s and D-8’s were similarly numbered with the first digit indicating the class tractor. The three digit system must have come later, as the D-7 you are operating is clearly #69.

I was thinking the same thing when I saw that picture.


Didn't get out to the ranch in time to get a picture of the cats (Challanger with performer) working, but here is picture of the latest block of sweet corn being sprinkled up.

"CR" wrote:

Didn't get out to the ranch in time to get a picture of the cats (Challanger with performer) working, but here is picture of the latest block of sweet corn being sprinkled up.

Where does the water come from? That big thing on the end of the suction line, is that a screen?