A few days off for Thanksgiving made it hard to want to go back to work on Monday. The artic blast didn’t help with motivation either. We’ve been splitting time between office work and shop work.

Shop work mainly focused on cycling vehicles through for oil changes and maintenance. One day we had three vehicles sitting on jacks after we sent slow leaking tires to the repair shop.

We’re just trying to get a couple little jobs done every day. Both combines and Quadtracs were supposed to cycle through this week as well, but the service tech had more pressing jobs pop up. So, only one of the four machines is completed. We’re also hoping it doesn’t snow a lot as the backhoe is in one corner of the shop waiting for a new water pump, exhaust gasket, and reman fuel injectors.

Doing more with less

I’ve also started working on 2025 crop plans and cash flow. The banker would like rough need estimates for 2025 as they are trying to forecast their needs as well.

With commodity prices where they are at this point, farming next year doesn’t look to be much fun. We are planning to cut crop inputs to bare bones, provide the plant a little fertility in the root zone, and use the rest from the soil. It’s crazy that some input prices continue to creep upward. It does sound like farmers are being slow to commit to buying inputs.

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One of our drivers headed south for the winter. Despite that we continue to haul corn to the ethanol plants. Basis continues to be good (around zero). Some sales have been cash price, but we’re also using some basis contracts as well as delivering against futures contracts that were set at higher prices earlier in the year.

So far, we haven’t had any issues with grain quality. Everything has been coming out nice and cool. We prefer to haul now then sit out the first couple weeks of January when it will be crazy busy.