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Published: October 6th 2008
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We had to go into Grand Island to go to the Post Office and to the bank. We like the neat and tidy farms. Their yards all around the barns and outbuildings are clean and there's no junk piled up anywhere, no rusty old tractors, no piles of barbed wire, nothing. It must be their German heritage. They
had large lawns. It looked like they just mowed whatever was growing and, voila, a lush, green lawn - and no sprinklers!
We also liked the town of Grand Island. It was clean and the people were friendly. There were some signs in town that were in Spanish. We had coffee once in the Blue Moon. HaHa! The owner said that the economy there was all right. They had a meat-packing plant and there were two ethanol plants in nearby towns. There was also a popcorn company. She felt they were prosperous there, but not booming. They also feed a lot of cattle and hogs. We stopped at a farm on the way back to our camper. It belonged to the Meyer's. (hi, Rosi). There was a neatly painted white storm cellar door in the front yard. We were going to ask
what the mystery plant was that was all dried up everywhere. No one was home, so we waited by the field for the combine to finish its row and we talked to the farmer. It was soybeans! They let them dry up before they harvest them. Each stalk had about 30 bean pods on it. Each pod had three round beans about the size of peas. Rich was talking to the hired hand who asked him if he wanted a ride on the combine. Rich said, "Sure!"
Rich climbed aboard. Talk about luxury! Air-conditioning, complete sound-proofing, many rows and columns of figures on the dash and the side windows shining like a heads-up display on a submarine, and music from the sound system. The driver proceeded to tell him
how he had been a custom harvester for years. He'd follow the wheat crops from Texas to Canada with his combines and his crew. It was hard work, but it made good money. He did it until one day, it was raining in Texas. Since he couldn't work in the fields, he went to a local baseball game and watched the kids play. That was when he realized he was
gone so much that he didn't even get to watch his own kids play baseball. So that year, after they reached Canada, he sold most of his equipment and came back to Nebraska where he bought (or at least bought the rights to) seven quarters of land and became a stay at home farmer. By this time we were a quarter of a mile from where we started, traveling in perfectly straight rows, cutting eight rows at once, when he said, "Watch this!" and gave the steering wheel a quick spin to the right. The combine steadily lumbered straight ahead. Seeing my mouth open, he spun the wheel to the left! And the combine continued onward. "Nice trick", I said. "How does THAT work?" "Simple," he replied. "The satellite is in control." (eerie music - the Twilight Zone) Come to find out, the satellite controlled everything - speed, direction, depth, and probably even the radio station he was listening to. UNTIL, the last four feet of the row, mankind was able again to display mastery and turn the machine around. This worked at both ends of the field. The before mentioned display of figures represented speed, number of soybeans per second, weight in the hopper, yield per acre, moisture content, and how long since the driver had eaten. He mentioned that some drivers took short naps while the satellite was in control, but they always set the alarm to tell them when the end of the field was approaching. On our return, he mentioned that this was the newest machine John Deere put out and that he was experiencing some difficulties. He then pointed to an approaching pick-up and told me that there was the John Deere dealership representative coming to check the motherboard. He had called him via the satellite, like On-Star. He said the guy was quite a computer whiz. He then added that this combine could be used for all crops. For instance, thirty minutes to change one part and five seconds to insert a different programming card, and he could move into a cornfield. Not a bad deal for only $250,000! Just think, a tiny computer chip cutting eight rows of soybeans, corn, alfalfa, potatoes, wheat, or whatever. Busy little devil, huh! The farmer asked me if I wanted a job driving the combine, but I would have to bring my own book to read. He wasn't finished with his, even though he had been harvesting for about 14 straight hours. He couldn't find anyone around who wanted a job. I thanked him and informed him that I was retired from HARD work.
We packed up and drove on. We passed a car lot with a sign that read: "If you want to pay more, that's your business. If you want to pay less, that's our business". We ate lunch in a park by a duck pond. As we drove along, we began to notice that lots of houses had daylight basements or their downstairs was half underground. It has become very flat. Now we see water towers in the towns and at the raanches, instead of water tanks like they have in hilly places. We saw a truck headed west with two ambulances on board that said Sacramento Fire Department. We pulled into a lovely state park that had camper hook-ups! We slept under the protection of sturdy oaks.
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1/4 of a lot
It's amazing what 1/4 of a million will purchase...in my office, a new scanner that produces 3D images of the patient's skull. In Nebraska, an amazing green machine! By the way...what is a quarter of land? Quarter of a mile? I'm glad you are having such an adventure...keep the stories coming! T