Ivan in the library

I caught Ivan in the Brookings Library today doing a little farm research. He told me every once in a while, he likes to get away from the office to renew his brain cells and finish up his work.

The weather man and gardener

As long as I can remember I've seen Scharke having coffee every morning in the cafe from about 7:30 to 8:30. He is known as Elkton's offical weather man. He can tell you to the hundreth how much rain we got, what way the wind is blowing, and how warm or cold it's going to be this next week. Scharke is a real gardener in the summer, and in the winter he spends a lot of his time reading seed magazines and planning his spring planting.

The corn pile

The Elkton Farmers C0-0p built two new storage bins not long ago, yet in the fall when the farmers haul in their corn from the fields, they still find themselves short of storage room and have to stock pile the corn outside for the winter. Here Brad and Randy are hauling off corn from the pile.

Loading a truck with shelled corn

Brad is loading a truck with dry shelled corn. He says he can load a 300-bushel straight truck in about 2 to 3 minutes, and it takes about 7 minutes to load an 18-wheeler. Now how long would it take to load an 18-wheeler with a scoop and shovel?

Hauling corn

Randy finds hauling corn in the winter is not really a bad job. Inside the cab of the truck it's nice and warm, and the truck loads up with corn fast. He says Brad is the one who has to spend the day outside in the wind and cold.

The Pipestone sale barn

The livestock sale at the Pipestone sale barn on Thursday is usually well represented by Elkton farmers. Not only are they buying or selling at the sale, but a great number of them also seem to find the lunch counter.

Farmers at the sale

Here Ralf is studying a pen of cattle. When farmers come to buy, they usually find livestock too high; but on the other hand when they're selling, they could always use a little more.

Les and Mike having a laugh

During the sale, Les and Mike take time out to share a private joke just between the two of them. It's not known if the price was too high or too low for that last pen of cattle.

The sale is about over

The sale is about over and Les and Leroy are talking things over. Leroy does not know it yet, but he'll be making three more trips yet tonight over to Pipestone and back to Elkton with his cattle trailer.