Farm show season is here, signaling a glorious time to be dreaming of new equipment for your operation. As fun as looking at new machinery and gadgets can be, it is also a stressful time due to the decision-making process.

Post-season harvest is a great time to get things cleaned up, serviced and put away. While it is satisfying to see a clean and shiny piece of equipment, I must say, as I get older and acquire more machinery to wash, the motivation to clean up is far less than it once was.

My parents instilled a mantra in me I am sure many of you have as well: “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst, and everything in between is gravy.”

In order to get large amounts of forage harvested in a timely manner, forage mergers are the answer. A forage merger can be a very valuable asset to have on a farm. They move quickly across the field, gently picking up and moving the crop via a belt, where it is deposited gently into a windrow.

Farm show season is here, signaling a glorious time to be dreaming of new equipment for your operation. As fun as looking at new machinery and gadgets can be, it is also a stressful time due to the decision-making process.

Seems like there is always a project or 12 around the farm that requires removal of soil a round, pointed shovel just isn’t up to – or (maybe more accurately) your back isn’t up to.

Seems like there is always a project or 12 around the farm that requires removal of soil a round, pointed shovel just isn’t up to – or (maybe more accurately) your back isn’t up to. What’s more, these tasks usually call for a piece of machinery the average farm operator neither possesses nor has the expertise to operate.

Not too long ago in this column, we discussed some of the different ways we cut metal in and around our farm shops; therefore, I thought it reasonable we talk about some of the ways to repair metal that either was cut by accident or broke outright on its own.

A power takeoff (PTO) can be defined as any of several methods for taking power from a source, such as a running engine and transferring that power to an attached implement or a separate machine using a driveline.

There has been much press lately about how our nation’s roads and bridges are badly in need of repairs or replacement. Recent bridge collapses are prime examples of how bad things can get when maintenance and replacements are forgone in the face of financial strains.