Gift of Finest Wheat

        Today we harvested the last wheat field for 2013.  This 26 acre field was our only wheat field, but my husband has been harvesting for the neighbors this past week.  Theirs brought anywhere from 45 to 70 bushels per acre.  We will have to wait until Monday when the elevator opens to see how ours did.  Now hopefully we can enjoy the rest of the day and do something nice for our anniversary.

       "You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat, come give to us o saving Lord, the bread of life to eat."

         "As when the shepherd calls his sheep, they know and heed his voice; so when You call your family Lord, we follow and rejoice."

        "With joyful lips we sing to You, our praise and gratitude, that You should count us worthy Lord, to share this heavenly food."

         "The mystery of your presence Lord, no mortal tongue can tell; whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell."

         "You give yourself to us o Lord, then selfless let us be, to serve each other in Your name in truth and charity."

       As we celebrate our first anniversary today, may we always remember God's blessings in our lives and thank him for the wonderful gifts he has given us.

100th Anniversary

        Back in 1913 the Keokuk Dam and Power Plant was complete.  It was the first of its kind to span the Mississippi River.  If you follow the dam, power plant, and lock system, it spans 2 1/2 miles.  The first part of our tour was riding a trolley across the dam. The dam complete with 119 spillways is to the right of the power plant. 

          They borrowed two trolley's from Western Illinois Threshers to give visitors a ride.  The last time anyone had this opportunity was back in 1993 when the flood prevented people from driving across the Keokuk-Hamilton bridge.  They brought in a trolley then to give workers a safe way to get to work for over three weeks. 

        My nephew had the best time looking at all the water.

        The cranes, which are hard to see in the photo, have gathered to catch all the fish that make it threw the dam.  We were able to see one catch a fish.  All the other birds gathered around to steal his catch.  It took him awhile to swallow the fish whole, but he was able to keep it to himself.  

         Now you can see the water spilling out of the dam spillway.  The upper river elevation is maintained at a constant elevation while the lower river level varies with water flow. The average difference is 35 feet. Each spillway can pass 30,000 gallons of water per second.

        The Mississippi River is above flood levels for the third time this summer, but the only time all the dam spillways were open was back in the flood of 1993.  Can you imagine how much water was flowing then. 

        Here you can see the other trolley going across the dam.  It is going under the mounted system they use to lower and raise the spillway gates. 

       They brought one of the gates inside the power plant for us to see the size of them.  It's 32 feet long and 11 feet high and weighs 14 tons.

 

               Next on our tour was a walking tour of the plant. First, we walked past the old lock system, which was only able to hold one barge at a time. The dry lock is where they could put barges to work on them.  They would float them in and then drain all the water out.  

         Now you can see the workers house between the lock and dry lock. 

         The lock had two gates.  One on the upper side and one on the lower side.  When a barge came from the upper Mississippi, they would open the upper gate, allow the barge in, close it, let the water out, and open the lower gate to let the barge out.  

 Water first comes into the plant on the left side.  

       Water enters under the outside skimmer wall through arches in the foundation. This design blocks floating debris from entering the Turbine Intake Area.  Once inside water passes through trash screens, which keeps logs from reaching turbines.

Water enters a concrete passageway, goes through the turbines, and out the east wall.

        This gate is lifted allowing the water to flow in.   There are four gates for each turbine. Each gate is 40 feet tall and weighs 5 tons. 

       This is one of the old transformer located in the plant.  Generated power is increased from 13,800 volts to 69,000 volts by these transformers for transmission to substations in Illinois and Iowa.

        Here is a newer transformer.  Wow, those are huge!  The plant had two old transformers and three or four newer transformers. 

Here is a look at the east side of the plant. 

        There are fifteen generators.  Water spins each turbine at 62.1 RPM. Each 10,000 horsepower turbine is connected with a generator like this one to produce 10,000kW of electricity. 

     What a great way to spend a cool Sunday afternoon!



 

 



 

 

 

 

 

God Will Provide

        The 2013 spring planting season is finally behind us and not a day too soon...as long as the rest of the soybeans come up.  God was just testing our patience and faith.  He reminded us that "God will provide for all that we need here at the this table of plenty."  (One of my favorite songs to sing during mass.)

        Last week on Monday we planted our first field of soybeans which is extremely late.  The wet spring kept us out of the fields.  As you can see from the photo that the warm conditions last week helped the beans sprout very quickly. 

       The corn also liked the warm dry conditions.  It really took off.  Now it won't be long before it canopies over and you won't be able to row it anymore. 

Oh, No!

        Hard to believe it is the middle of June and we still don't have half our beans in.  Yesterday was a stressful day for my husband.  He started the day planting a 40 acre field which worked really rough because the weeds had gotten away from him with all the rain.  Then he went to a small field next to town we cash rent.  While making his first round with the field cultivator he got stuck.  He was watching the tree row to make sure he didn't get to close meanwhile a very wet hole was lurking.  By the time he noticed it was wet, it was too late. 
        Of course he first calls me to bring him a couple chains.  He thought if he unhooked the field cultivator and move the Cat Challenger to drier ground, he could pull it out.  So I dropped the what I was doing to go help.  Needless to say two broken chains later the field cultivator remained unmoved.  Next step call Frakes wrecker service in town.  The owner was gone on a run for a rolled backhoe, so his grandson came with their older wrecker. 
         Drew, Derick, and I got a double wench on it and tried again.  The wrecker pulled so hard it picked the front tires off the ground without moving the field cultivator.  Looks like we would have to wait for Drew's grandpa to get back.  So we took Drew back to the shop and we went to check on the other fields.
          When Ralph got back we all headed to the field.  After hooking up the second wrecker we were able to SLOWLY move the field cultivator forward.  As we were pulling it forward, mucky mud was building up around the tires.  Eventually the build up provided too much for the chains and we broke a couple more. 
         We rehooked and tried again, but this time we hooked the Cat up too with chains.  As it inched forward everyone heard a POP.  It wasn't a chain this time, but a pin on the field cultivator.  It caused one set of tires to go into the shovels and bent a thick metal bar. 
         After an investigation of the damage and discussions of what to do now, we hooked up the hydraulic hoses and tried raising the wings.  The broken side raised just fine folding over twice getting the broken wheels out of the way. The right wing still had all the pressure from the built up mud, though.  It started folding up normally, but suddenly we noticed it was trying to fold both of them up together.  Then I noticed some metal brackets were bent. 
        As we re-evaluate the situation, my husband jumps on his phone to see if he has any implement dealership number in his phone.  It's quarter to five and if he could get ahold of them before five, maybe he could get parts a day earlier.  No luck:(
         Now we had to try pulling it out with the left folded up and the right not.  Once again everyone hooked up and tried again as a couple buddies from town were walking across the field to see what all the excitement was about.  Now slowly, but surely we were able to pull it out four hours later.
        We spent the rest of the evening investigating the damage and seeing if we could bend them back.  Thankfully, my husband's uncle said Derick could use his field cultivator while he was planting until the parts come in on Friday.

Weeds, weeds, and more weeds

       With all the rain and work on the bin, the garden was put on the back burner.  After one long hard day, I was able to till between all the rows, and hoe between the plants to get the weeds under control.  In the picture you can see a row of peas, two rows of green beans that are trying to recover from a bug attach a couple weeks ago, a row of onions, a row of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts, and a row of corn.  We also have sweet potatoes, red potatoes, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, big boy tomatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, okra, cucumbers, and zucchini. 

 

       Once I got the whole garden tilled I added four more rows of sweet corn, a few eggplants, pumpkins, and watermelons.  Since this is my first year planting in our garden it will be interesting to see how well each vegetable does.  

       Earlier in the spring you might remember I planted different fruits.  Well here is our strawberries now.  I was able to pick a cereal bowl full of strawberries. In the background is the new grass seed I planted.  It did come up, but there are many weeds that joined it. The other parts of the yard came up without the weeds, luckily. 

It's Up!

        Tuesday, we finished putting up the sides of the grain bin.  With help from a our fathers, a couple high school boys, and a few neighbors we were able to add six more rings to complete the bin and anchor it to the concrete in one day.

        During the whole process people kept telling us stories of what they have used in the past to put bins up.  They used hand jacks where you had to have one person per jack and crank it up.  Luckily we were able to rent these jacks that raise with the aid of hydraulic hoses connected to a motor in the middle.  First you evenly space six of these around the bin before drilling a hole in the concrete and anchoring it to the ground. The upper red bar that has seven holes.  Each of these line up and bolt to the bin walls.  In the background you can see seven tiny little holes were these were just attached to the bin.  Once each one is a attached you fire up the engine and push a lever to raise it.  They work like a dream!

        The inside ladder helps you get in and out when the grain is higher than the door. Also, you can still see the row of bolt holes we need to finish after we took down the jacks. 

        Here is our door complete with lots of warning labels about the dangers of a full grain bin and when an auger is in use.  You might be wondering why it is so high off the ground that's because there will be a drying floor in the bin.  The bottom of the step is where the floor will be on the inside.

        Now you can see the outside ladder and platform.  You also might see that one row is slightly a different color.  That is partially due to the fact that six different weights of metal were used.  They measure weight of corrugated steel in gauges.  Let's say the gauge is 20 that means 20 pieces fit in one inch or 12 gauge means 12 sheets fit in an inch.  The top three rings were the lightest.  Then each ring got a little heavier until the two rings that encircle the door, they are the same gauge.

      Doesn't our work from last week seem so tiny now?  My husband keeps trying to convince everyone that stops by to look at the bin that they want to attach the stirators to those motors.   The stirators are three long augers that will dangle down from the motors. 

       Where's Ace?  Take a look at all the outdoor pictures.  Can you find our dog, Ace?

 

The to do list is shrinking.  Here is what's left.

1.  Attach fan to the back.

2.  Cut a hole in the bin and put together discharge auger.

3.  Put drying floor in.

4.  Bake cookies for electricians. (They are childhood neighbors of mine and like to give me a hard time.)

5.  Call electrician back to wire fan, discharge auger, set electricity pole, and hook up electricity to bins. 

 

Stirator Assembly

        Some grain bins have a stirator in them to help dry corn/beans down when they are harvested at too high of a moisture content.  When grain has a high moisture content it will spoil during storage.  Most of the time you can just put off harvest until your grain is dryer, but on wet years corn will not dry down.  Looks like a stirator might be a very good investment for this year.

        First we drilled holes for the brackets that will support the stirator as it turns around the bin.  Then we put the blue bands in place for the wheel to travel on.  Finally we tightened all the nuts and bolts. 

        Here you can see the wheel attached to the I beam.

        Until we were ready to hang the I beam from the center, we used the scaffolding to support it while we attached the three motor mounts, chains, pulleys, etc. You can see the instructions manual resting on the I beam.  We didn't always read it first so sometimes we had to take it back apart and redo it.  Other times it was very clear where pieces went without reading.  

        There are three stirators.  One is fix on the end of the I beam, next to the track the beam follows as it circles the bin.  The other two travel back and forth on the I beam to cover all the grain between the middle of the bin and the outer wall. 

        The electricians came this morning and ran some wires and conduit to power the stirators, spreader, and lights for both inside and outside the bin. They will have to make one more visit once the whole bin is up to wire the grain dump and fan.

Once they left we were done with the scaffolding.  Now you can see what the I beam hangs from. 

        Here is a view from on top the grain bin.  Corn/beans will dump into the top of the bin from an auger.  The spreader will then spread the incoming grain evenly around the bin. 

        When you have moist grain you will turn on the stirators to stir the dry grain from the bottom of the bin by the fan to the top.  Then the wetter grain will be closer to the fan to dry out.  The stirators are small augers that will attach with pulleys to each motor. We have to wait until all the rings are on to attach the augers, but everything else is ready.