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Combining in Montana

A

ag-pilot

SPONSOR
Mt.
Anyone with experience operating machinery want to come to Mt. and drive a new John Deere Combine for the wheat harvest next week?
One of my customers was in a 4-wheeler wreck AFTER he was run over by a bull and had to have surgery last week leaving the operation shorthanded. I sat in one for several years but the grasshopper spraying is going to keep me in my hot old spray plane instead of a nice new air-conditioned combine.

If your interested get a hold of me or 12geezer2. He has been coming out for 3 or 4 years now.

It will be long days with great people and food and you won't get rich but if you enjoy this kind of thing you will have a blast.

Dave
 
Dave: Hoppers everywhere here too... all the cars look like hell and everything which moves down the road stinks from hoppers in the working parts. Only the game-birds and spray pilots like this. Ralph
 
Are there an unusual abundance of insects this year? Just curious if they are cyclic and how they could affect yields without intervention.
 
It actually sounds like fun!

Sorry my work schedule will not let me go that far. When I retire I think I will try that.
 
I think this is the area where the "BIG SKY" thing came from. REALLY good people-- and occasionally get to "borrow" ag-pilots supercub just for fun---not to mention all the fine food--home made cinnamon rolls--and the best "cow meat" ANYWHERE !!!! :lol:
 
Sounds fun Dave. I worked on a custom crew in the Big Sandy area 30 some years ago for a few summers. But can't get away now. As I remember we had IH 915 combines back then - sound right?

The grass hoppers are terrible in western Montana too. The worst I've seen.
 
combining in MT

Sorry folks, The harvest will start this coming week some time depending on weather and run through the end of August.If you call 406-234 4575 between 6 and 7 am and talk to Jerry you can get all the details. These combines have 36' headers and are there is quite a bit to keep track of in the uneven ground so experience with machinery will be a bug advantage.

Dave
 
Hoppers are terrible here in NE WYO as well. Just had my place sprayed last week. I wish I could come up and get some combining in but then I would have to find someone to come here and put up the second cutting of hay.
 
should be done wringing Deano out by tuesday I'll send him home to recharge for a few days, He wrote the Book on combining... awesome help, We are blessed that he comes out here to help!! matt
 
I am a farm boy in Minnesota and would like to do this but can't this year, Keep my phone number and call me next year. 612-597-5112
I am 60 years old and trying to retire.
Cal
 
combining

Still need someone from around the 20th of August until around the first of September. That is when all the high-school/college help will head back to school leaving a short crew.
Call Jerry Singleton at 406-234-4575 between 6 & 7 am or send me a PM

Thanks
Dave
 
Dave
Your chief combiner just pulled in at 4:30 this morn as I was getting to the airport.
(I think he's playing couch potato at the present after his 24+ hr stint)
 
Just reminiscing ---some of the "good old days"---of not so long ago. More "couch potato" now, than combiner OR aviator.....Those long days in Montana and people/ places beyond GREAT MEMORIES Many Thanks to ALL !
 
ag-pilot said:
Sorry folks, The harvest will start this coming week some time depending on weather and run through the end of August.If you call 406-234 4575 between 6 and 7 am and talk to Jerry you can get all the details. These combines have 36' headers and are there is quite a bit to keep track of in the uneven ground so experience with machinery will be a bug advantage.

Dave
Click to expand...

Holy guacamole, Dude! 36 foot headers? I worked two seasons for a custom cutter waaaaay back. He ran nothing but Gleaner Model Rs with what we thought were HUGE headers.....24 feet!

I don't even want to think about keeping track of 36 feet of header in the hills and rocks, thank you. Oh, and my former boss would be rolling over in his grave if he knew I was running a green machine....

Last season we ended near Cut Bank, cutting ten inch barley in four inches of snow......big fun. Last time I was really happy to get back to school.

MTV
 
mvivion said:
Holy guacamole, Dude! 36 foot headers? I worked two seasons for a custom cutter waaaaay back. He ran nothing but Gleaner Model Rs with what we thought were HUGE headers.....24 feet!

I don't even want to think about keeping track of 36 feet of header in the hills and rocks, thank you. Oh, and my former boss would be rolling over in his grave if he knew I was running a green machine....

MTV
Click to expand...

Right. I think I'll just stay hiding in the corner.

I used to run a Massey Harris 21 without a cab and an 18 foot header. It was scary on the hills with its belt drive. We upgraded to a JD 105 with a swamp cooler. I look at combines now and get a little scared at how big and expensive they are.
 
Sorry Cub Doctor---just recalling some better days---AND Mike of Montana----I first ran a combine at Grandin North Dakota WAY back in 1957 (700 miles from my Wyoming home). 7 dollars a day plus board and room---it was an old CO-OP (Cockshutt ???)---NO CAB---MUCH dust AND barley beards in the armpits---Those TOO were some very special days---and special people. GOOD home cookin ---often 5 times a day and at 13 years old I could really eat----:lol:
 
12Geezer2 said:
Sorry Cub Doctor---just recalling some better days---AND Mike of Montana----I first ran a combine at Grandin North Dakota WAY back in 1957 (700 miles from my Wyoming home). 7 dollars a day plus board and room---it was an old CO-OP (Cockshutt ???)---NO CAB---MUCH dust AND barley beards in the armpits---Those TOO were some very special days---and special people. GOOD home cookin ---often 5 times a day and at 13 years old I could really eat----:lol:
Click to expand...

yes, man the food was incredible.....the bosses wife was the cook and she figured a 17 year old kid ought to eat like a horse. When we moved north of SD the boss took cabs off the machines.....said we couldn’t see the headers well enough in hilly and rocky country. Ith straw choppers installed......dust??? Oh yeah.

MTV
 
When I first arrived on the Montana scene, the machine I ran had a 42 foot header as I recall---something called a honey bee or something like that ---Ag-pilot I am sure remembers. When I first talked with Dave about this, I mentioned that my dear mother graduated high school at Custer County High (class of 1921) She then attended something called "finishing school" while working at the now long gone BRATH HOTEL for board and room. After graduation she taught at several one room schools----Kirby-----Moorehead----and Ismay as I recall. Mom and Dad were married there in Miles City in 1929. Dad grew up on the west side of the Powder River (Otter Creek) and homesteaded on Bloom Creek. Dad served in France in WWI. Mom grew up in a large family on the east side of the Powder on Bay Horse Creek. When they married they moved to Wyarno, Wyoming (12 miles east of Sheridan) where Dad was postmaster and operated a small grocery store. I was about 2 years old when our family moved to Dayton, Wy where I grew up (well, sort of grew up) ---sorry I am an "old geezer" rambling----As my 90 year old brother in law says---"it's been a heck of a ride".;-)
 
The combiner above and around my place was from Iowa, and he said the view was the best he'd ever seen! A 40' tracked machine, he said the slopes were also the most trecerous he'd ever worked. In the days he was here, I kept him entertained upon my arrival home, as figured he was plenty used to low flying planes.
 
I found it interesting when we moved back to the Lower 48 that almost all the custom cutters that came through Minnesota these days were Australians. I talked to one of the owners and he said that can't get young folks from here to do that kind of work these days.

Seriously? I thought I'd cut a fat hog doing that work.

MTV
 
Wow how time flys. One thing that’s still the same is the grasshoppers were about as bad this year as back then and will be worse next year so keep the 802 fueled up Mark.
Dave
 
Montana does have big hoppers IMG_1303.JPG


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Not to hijack this thread, but seeing as how you folks are local to MT I thought this may be a good place to ask. Is there anyone in the Billings area that does flight instruction in a tailwheel? I want to get my private but I'd like to be in a tailwheel from the beginning as that's the main type of aircraft that interests me and beyond that I feel like going tailwheel to nosewheel would be much easier than the opposite. Any and all input/direction is very much appreciated.
Thanks
 
Last edited:
There are a lot of pitfalls to that request.
1. are you going to buy the tw airplane to learn in?
2. you have to get one that has all the bells and whistles to take the checkride in.
3. No one in this part of the world is going to send you off in their tw airplane to do all the cross countries etc.

Id recommend getting all your ducks in a row, getting your license as quiickly as possible in what ever is available locally, then spend the next year learning to fly a tw airplane properly
You will be time and money and progress ahead on your flying.





Sent from my E6910 using Tapatalk
 
Thanks for the reply!
I guess that I may have worded my question poorly or been unclear, I'm looking for a school or instructor that has an airplane that they use for instruction that can be rented to take lessons in.
I'm pretty new to the whole process, so forgive my ignorance to the do's and dont's of learning to fly.
What bells and whistles would an airplane like a Cessna 120 or 140 lack that a typical 150 trainer wouldn't? I realize there's a much steeper learning curve and more liability for the instructor which is why I ask if such a school/instructor/airplane exists?
Again, I'm new to it all but I know the end goal, and I'm just trying to find out if its possible to take this route in my area code.
 
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