We at Nelson Family Farms love our family and our farm, so we are happy to share some of the memories with you. Please look through our photo gallery to see what is happening.

	FALL 2014

	On Labor Day weekend, we experienced the devastation of a tornado.  The tornado on Sunday night hit a hog building on the Litchfield Acres down by Dayton.		The roof was lifted off the East 1/2 of the barn and scattered it across the corn field.  Let the clean up begin.

	Can you imagine the excitement and how loud it was when the tornado hit?  The pigs were just hanging out when we came to clean up on Monday morning.		Dave and Tyson helped clean up the yard and into the edge of the corn field.

	Debris and steel was scattered for a 1/2 mile east into our corn field.  It made for a fun time harvesting the corn.		With a big crop this fall we knew being efficient with the combine and grain cart was going to be a concern.  To be more efficient we installed a bigger hopper on our combine.

	This new hopper will allow us to cut through a 1/2 mile field without having to stop and dump on the grain cart.  When full our combine will now hold 600 bushels of corn.		With a mild summer of temps and timely rains, our harvest was delayed into the first week of October.  Normally we start soybean harvest in mid-late September.

	As we get ready for harvest, a few farms got new driveways for better access to the field.		Once soybean harvest started we got the mower going one more time on the ditches.

	We started harvesting soybeans on the Litchfield Acres with our 2.0 maturity Asgrow's.		As we combined on our first day of Soybeans, one could not help but catch this awesome picture!  Gods blessing of Harvest.

	Filling the semi with the grain cart.		Soybean yields were good this year from our timely rains through the summer!

	The best thing about harvest is playing in the semi full of grain with the kids.  Memories being made!		Of Course Mason has to keep up with the older 2 and play in the semi too!

	Unloading on the Go.  Gary in combine, Karma in the Grain Cart.		Dave playing with the kids in the semi trailer full of soybeans.  It wasn't 30 years ago and he was doing this with his daddy!

	Cleaning out the culverts on the Haire 2 farm.		You know it's a muddy fall when you proactively put on your combine a underbelly strap and cable assembly....

	Hoping we don't have to use it, we installed the straps and cables on the combine in the yard instead of when sunk in the mud...		We'll show you our many ruts, but not once did we get stuck this fall with the combine or grain cart!

	It was easy to see the mud when combining beans, but corn was not going to be so fun since you can't see where there was mud or water until you were already too far in.		Our fleet of trucks for hauling grain from the field to the elevator.

	Our duals turned into a big single tire once they filled with mud!		Not too far behind the corn combine, we get the tillage started.  This is our Case 870 discripper on the Thor farm.

	The discripper discs the corn stalks and then the ripper shanks roll the dirt and mix in the crop residue. Also see on the rear a rolling basket to break up the clods and rootballs.		Attaching our 12 row corn head to the combine on the gravel road.  The corn head is too wide to leave on the combine when going down the road.

	Once harvest starts in corn, we rarely shut down unless it rains too much.  It takes us about 1 month to harvest corn.		Unloading the grain from the combine into the grain cart.

	The grain cart then dumps the corn into the semi's.		The semi then heads to the elevator to dump the grain.

	The other tillage that takes place in the fall is Strip Tillage. Here you see Nh3 being applied via strip tillage on soybean stubble.		We use an Ag Leader Integra and Hiniker Nitro Alert to control our Nh3 Applicator.

	Our striptill machine can also apply Nh3 on conventional acres.  Just lift the residue managers and go.		With any machine comes mechanical failures...  Harcourt Equipment is always there for us when we need in field service.

	Look who got to learn how to run the combine this fall?!?!  Morgan!		Dad was in the seat next to her, but she did great!  Operator in Training!!!

	And of course guess who thinks he should get to drive the combine too...  After some sweet talking to grandpa, I think Tyson got to sit on his lap and drive.		A view of our Yield Monitor.  The 20/20 with FieldView by Precision Planting.

	Putting in long hours in the fall is a everyday occurrence in corn.		Once the soybeans are harvested and its cold enough, the manure applicators pull in!

	Keeping 3 semi's, 1 combine, 1 grain cart, and 2 tillage tractors moving for 1.5 months....  It takes 1000's of gallons of diesel fuel!		More remnants of a muddy harvest.

	We ran the ripper for 3 days around the clock to beat the snow storm that closed our harvest window.		The snow came at 2 AM on Tuesday morning, but we were able to keep going until we finished on Wednesday.

	Filling with fuel in the middle of the night so we could keep rolling.		We finished harvest of 2014 on Soybeans.  Hard to believe, but we had a small area of a field that is not tiled.  We could not harvest it until the ground froze making it hard enough to get the combine over the mud...

	Once harvest is complete, we pull everything through the wash bay and give it a good scrub down from a long dirty harvest.		Washing the CAT after we finished Nh3.

	Thank you for your interest in Nelson Family Farms. If we can help you in any way, please call or stop by. Visitors are always welcome.

		Nelson Family Farms Fort Dodge, Iowa 50501 Phone: 515-574-9519 :: Email: dave.nelson@nelsonff.com