First time plowing. How'd I do?

[Marveltone]

It was a beautiful, sunny fall day on Minnesota Hill. What does that mean? It's a good day to burn some vacation time and do some plowing. Now mind you, I've never plowed before, and the plow is an ancient Case three-bottom trip plow that I pulled out of the weeds, put some new tires on, and spruced up a little. It's been sitting on the hillside for well over thirty years, so things were a bit stiff. Nothing a bit of oil, grease and wire brushing can't fix. As for the needed adjustments, I looked all over this site, as well as other online resources to see how everything should line up. My dad and brother showed up to lend help and advice and we proceeded to mark the field, adjust the plow to the tractor and start plowing.

The old Major did a stellar job pulling the 3x14" moldboard through the damp, heavy soil. The only time I had any problems was when I caught a willow root on an outside pass. I backed up, raised the plow a couple notches and went over it. I did the bulk of my little two acre field today and I'll finish the weird little dogleg and the headlands tomorrow. Meanwhile, a few pics for y'all to critique.

Joe

 

[MIKE R]

Looks good. Plowing has to be one of my favorite tasks to do with the tractor.

 

[groundcover]

Thought I was going to see snow ! Looks good though, I can wait for the snow !

 

[jeff9366]

Very fine. Very, very, fine.

Nice looking soil.

What will you plant?

 

[walker450]

Great job and great pictures. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Skintback]

Looks good to me too. Just started plowing myself. Like a poster above said, I love plowing. Ain't nothing like seeing the dirt rolling off the moldboard.

BTW... That some good looking dirt too.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Gosh almighty...
What I would give for soil like that...
Here in the Piedmont of NC one side of a field will be red clay and the other side will be sandy loam...

Those old trip plows do a good job...
Back in the 60's when we did fall plowing I used an old Oliver trip plow turning 2-14's with an M Farmall...
My dad used a D-17 Allis and his friend used a 170 Allis turning 3-16's each...
Needless to say those were good times and great memories...
That old Major still has a lot of life in her...

 

[milkman636]

That does indeed look like one fine day. It's great to see the old iron being used.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Marveltone]

Very fine. Very, very, fine.

Nice looking soil.

What will you plant?

Thanks! We'll plant field corn in part of it and some sort of "green manure" in the rest, so I can rotate them annually.

Joe

 

[Larro Darro]

Wow. I could use a couple of tons of that black dirt like fertilizer here on my sandy land. Your plowing looks great, Joe. Good job.

Larro