Chisel plowing scrap iron treasures?

[Kow Farmer]

A few days ago I finished chisel plowing my soybean ground. I was walking out in the field this afternoon to see how the chisel plowing worked. It worked great, even found quite a few old scrap iron trasures from decades gone by. I found a bent up Vise Grip, single water faucet, lawnmower blade, linkage from an old foot brake/clutch, 40 penny polebarn nail, old tin soda/beer can, lots of broken glass, old chimney bricks, 2 huge concrete chunks of an old building foundation and last but not least, lots of rocks. What have some of you been finding after you are done with tillage? Now if I can only find a volunteer rock picker/helper? LOL
Kow Farmer (Kurt)
 

[Paul from MI]

Found about a half dozen golf balls combining beans near the house. I used to stop and pick them up for my sons, who put them there in the first place. No more, let 'em find their own.
 

[Ron in NS]

The tough part is when you find them treasures sticking into your tires.....
I'd be going over it all again with a metal detector.
 

[rustyplow]

Like you say, lots of rocks and various broken plow coulters drag teeth and other scrap iron. Found this old spark plug this spring. Nothing special, I guess, but I cleand it up and put it on the shelf.

 

[Kow Farmer]

You know the way I found some of these things today would have flattened a tire next spring for me. Especially the lawnmower blade, that was standing straight up on end. So was a 2' piece of angle iron I found not far from the blade. Sometimes I wonder if my farm isn't on top a scrap yard? LOL
Kow Farmer
 

[OliverGuy]

I farm an old airport. Holy cow is there a lot of stuff in there besides soil. My favorite was an old mattress that was only the springs left on a new farm, incorporated it throughout my field cultivator, took an hour to get out.
 

[paul]

Yesterday I was combining beans, looked over to the bare stubble I just did a 1/2 round ago, and there lay the plow coulter the wife lost last fall. We looked and looked for it last fall & this spring, I field cultivated that field, we got 12 inches of rain in May, tiled it in early June crossing that field many many times, I field cultivated it 2 more times to level it, planted and sprayed it, no sign of that coulter I assumed it was burried in the furrow and would take deep tillage to bring it up.

Was very lucky it was so flat, didn't wreck the header, the flange/bracket stub was down in the dirt.


When I started plowing dad let me go the 1st round alone, I had to stop and pick some stuff up, when I got back to dad & showed hime the big pipe and bar, he said oh, that's where that fell off! - Years ago, it was weight he had on his old disk, fell off in the field.

Was picking rocks when dad was harrowing I was even younger, I found a 1/2 an oxen shoe, that was my first big 'field find' and kinda neat, still have it, remember it.

--->Paul
 

[Kow Farmer]

Hi Paul,
I seen you were out combining the other night. How are things going? Doesn't it make you wonder how much stuff you have lost out doing fieldwork? What's even stranger is finding what you lost years later, such as the plow coulter you found.
Kow Farmer (Kurt)
 

[JerryS]

Back in the 50s my dad plowed up an old plowshare that was pretty deep in the ground, in a new-ground field that hadn't been cultivated in many, many years. He noted that it had been made by a blacksmith, and that it was very old.

A few years later some historians discovered that Moses Rose, the infamous "coward of the Alamo", was buried about a mile from the old home place where I grew up (this is northwestern Louisiana). After escaping from the Alamo he came to our community and set up shop as a blacksmith, so I've always wondered if he was the one who made that old plowshare.

(For the record, Rose was not so much a coward as a practical realist, and he didn't care for the odds at the Alamo. He was quite possibly the most experienced soldier at the Alamo, having served all over Europe with Napoleon.)
 

[ihman73]

If only planted tools would grow...
 

[Walt Davies]

Found the side piece of metal that goes on the horse collar in our garden. Lots of little prices of metal here and there.
My farm is 140 years old.
Walt
 

[Fullers Farmalls]

We live in a flood plain, we have more debris then you can imagine. Truly we have found pieces of bridges, old tools, dinnerware, you name it we have probably found it. Pretty neat stuff too.
 

[paul]

I got myself out of kilter a couple days last week with 'odd jobs' that needed done, seem I'm out of step now with the big farmers. Only 15 acres left, no elevators open over the weekend - who would ever expect the elevators don't need to be open extra hours in the middle of October! Beans look pretty good for the late planting after the tile job on the big field. I was surprised the weed field went through the combine as well as it did - and yieded ok for the mess.... You know, you try diffrent things, you experiement and learn - I learned Liberty/Ignite doesn't work as well in a drought... Near the road, of course.

Wife keeps having the plow break on her, think it's partially from last year, been tough going the last 2 years. Last year 4 coulter brackets broke (only lost the one), this year had entire bottom fall off the frame, had a bottom break off and slide up the arm, a trip-arm broke, and while setting the shims right for that today saw another coulter was coming off. I've gone through more plow lays the past 2 years than I have in 10 years! Met my neighbor across the road at the dealer this morning, he was getting chisel points - his are breaking off too.

Notice I did not say the wife is breaking the plow.... Not her doing, just very tough dry clay! :)

--->Paul
 

[paul]

Oh just thought of it, probably my best 'lost & found' is hard to even believe....

Old 3 point Case corn planter, I lost a gauge wheel when I was in my teens plnting with it. You'd think you couldn't lose that in a planted field, but I guess I'm special. Took one off the parts planter dad had.

Two years later, was planting corn in that field, and suddenly the tractor got pulled over to one side, the frame of the planter actually bent a little - the marker (a spike tooth, not a disk on that planter) had hooked the lost depth gauge wheel and was dragging it hard.

Had to straighten out the frame - just 2x2 metal tube - and back at it.

I still have no idea how a whole gauge wheel could stay lost for 2 years, it should be a lump on top of the field when planting. But that the planter of all things refound it's own part.....

Like you say, makes you wonder what all is out there.

--->Paul
 

[FBH44]

Cleaningout the little old pond behind the barn, I found a broken cast-iron monkey wrench in the mud. I know just what happened, Granpa Charlie or Uncle Bill or someone had gone to town, bought a new wrench,, snapped the cast iron putting a lot of arm into the first job, and threw the dern thingin the middle of the pone "Donggone cheap-busted worthlesss....."
Got it all sand-blasted and painted and hung up.