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McCain Vogel:

Welcome to the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture. I'm McCain Vogel, assistant editor of No-Till Farmer. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators Podcast, Frank Lessiter chats with longtime southeastern Wisconsin no-tiller Bob Wildermuth and his wife Anita, about their early days of adopting no-till, Bob's advice for cutting input costs, the 20 plus National No-Tillage Conferences that Bob and Anita have attended. And even Bob's off season activity of driving trucks all over the country.

Frank Lessiter:

So Bob, did you grow up in the Clinton area?

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah, all my farming years and so on, I was here. Yeah, you bet.

Frank Lessiter:

How long have you and Anita been farming?

Bob Wildermuth:

Well, I've been here since '41 when my father bought the other farm where I grew up. We've been married-

Anita Wildermuth:

Sixty-three years.

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah. Very good. Good thing she's here, I can never remember.

Frank Lessiter:

Fair. That's good. What year did you get married?

Anita Wildermuth:

1970. And we had our anniversary in 1980 and we were married in a pandemic and we had to our anniversary in a pandemic.

Frank Lessiter:

Well, you're just youngsters. Pam and I have been married. We got married in 1963.

Anita Wildermuth:

We were just kids.

Frank Lessiter:

Right. So how many acres are you farming on the home place here or whatever?

Bob Wildermuth:

All together it's about 245.

Frank Lessiter:

Well that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because you're not a big time user and you've been in no-till. Did you have chances to expand over the years and decide not to do it or what?

Bob Wildermuth:

We, well and me mostly I've had chances. There's been land all way around us that could been added if I really wanted to. But I've not wanted to because I figured I'm not doing that gall darn great with what I'm doing, so why do I want to make it worse? And that's where that's always been.

We milked cows for a long time, all the time I was growing up and then we moved over to this farm where I'm at. Isn't that far away from the other one. They could milk about twice as many. Of course things went along and time went on and I finally told my father, "The milk inspector's really going to get po'ed with that cement we got outside the barn. It's supposed to be in good shape." I said, "This about had it and we got some other difficulties around here, which we need to work."

I knew at that time, that was a lot of years ago, it'd be $50,000 at least to straighten things out any kind of way and wasn't really interesting because I knew what they'd say at the PCA. "Well, my goodness, you need to milk more cows to pay for this." And I had no use for that. So before long we quit milking and just fed the steers and two farms for a while. We'd usually have about at least 100 going for a while. And then one winter my father says, "You ought to come down here." At that time, well they had had a house down in Florida for over 20 years [inaudible 00:03:36] Springs, said, "You ought to come down here over the holidays." "Oh geez. Got to feed the cattle. I got to find somebody."

Well shucks, I thought more about it and ended up taking the livestock, what I had left which were about 20. They were a few that I should not have sold right away, weren't quite big enough. But otherwise I'd been feeding the steers shell corn. And once the bellies get used to it, it turns in to be a darn good looking animal. And once in a while, little hay, mostly shell corn. I had some Holsteins that went prime. Wow. That don't happen. I thought when we got back, we'll do it all over again. Got back, the price of livestock went down. As a farmer I said, "Well maybe not." But we never did after that. We just been corn and beans. That's probably been 25 years at least. And about that. All just corn and beans and her with teaching school and it's not been that great, some years like everybody's, but last two years with the kind of some help of new genetics and everything.

And then the fact that I kind of like this agri solutions blow salt fertilizer, which I put in right when I'm planting right on the seed. And I used to just do what they said, which was about six gallons to the acre. But it seemed like towards the end of the season it was dying out or not dying out, the stalks just looked like maybe they needed a little more. So I just jumped to it and the heck I went up to 10 gallons. Not supposed to do that, but I did. And it's worked. That and the help from the local DeLong Company people and so on. Now I'm up to where last two years, over 200 bushel the acre corn. That's something.

Frank Lessiter:

That's great.

Bob Wildermuth:

I can't believe that. But sure helps to pay the bills. And these kind of bills are just seems like they get larger both in the last two years also. I paid-

Frank Lessiter:

Yeah, so I-

Bob Wildermuth:

Go ahead.

Frank Lessiter:

I'm kind of like you. I grew up on a dairy farm north of Detroit, about 40 miles. And I think that milking cows and lugging hay bales is what made me an ag journalist. And as my dad once said to me, "You just decided it was easier to tell others how to farm than to do it yourself." So I think there's probably some truth in that. You're as old as I am. We're both in our eighties. I like to refer to myself as being as old as dirt. But you've probably seen it all. You've probably even started out mold board plowing and they went to minimum tillage and ended up with no-till. Right.

Bob Wildermuth:

I kind of went that way. Although I did quite a jump. I just got disgusted with working in soybean ground. Yeah, it looked pretty. "Oh, ain't that nice." All out there, nice and black and level or at least mostly leveled usually. But I said this is silly. This ground is soft to begin with. What are we doing this for? I didn't have a really great corn planter then, but it kind of worked. And then after that I had to go into a few things and my father and the University of Wisconsin stuff, well they're using an Allis Chalmer's planter for no-till, son of a gun. So I poked around and ran onto one and went from a four row to a six row, in fact. And as that went on, I said, "This is working, especially on the soybean ground, this is working good. It's growing all right." But this planter sure seems a little stupid.

I'm hearing about all these picket fence rows and planting and so on. This thing sure ain't doing it. And then I learned out how or why because it was the way the planter is made inside where the feed drops down, it hits the casting inside there. Well, for God's sake the seed's not going straight through. So some of them are close together, some of them are spread out. And so it took a while. I finally got a John Deere and the one I've got now, I keep looking at the tools and the things that I could add at the no-till shows and thinking about it. And I'm still not sure 100% I want to spend money for any extra things because I'm getting picket fence stands. Maybe there's something I could improve. That's what I keep thinking.

I keep telling myself, there has to because they're selling this stuff and it must be working. But I haven't done any of that. I've just been using what came with the planter and it's been working pretty good. So I've been doing that. And as I like to say with this whole thing, I guess, anyway, it's an old adage, but the kiss principle, "Keep things simple as you can." And when you're using quality seeds and good fertilizer placed right, and good rain if it's possible, you can still get over 200 bushels the acre apparently, because I did two years now.

Frank Lessiter:

So you're John Deere planter, what model is it and how old is it?

Bob Wildermuth:

Gosh, it's got to be dozen years old at least. It's a 1780. 1780 is a John Deere, six roll.

Frank Lessiter:

Okay. What roll was it?

Bob Wildermuth:

I have a 30 inch.

Frank Lessiter:

Okay. Gotcha. Okay, go ahead. Use this to plant soybeans too?

Bob Wildermuth:

So I can watch what's going on. But there's several things you can do, but the main thing I want to know is the population, how much population I'm putting on. And that's basically what I'm watching. And it seems to be pretty good. Okay, different seed. You get different seed and it'll go from 31, 32 to maybe another seed product, it'll get up to 35, that thousand. And I'll run along with it and then, well I can't say that's hurting me any. I'm still getting decent yields and the hybrids I think can take it. I think they're able to take it. So I'm not concerned. Would be nice if they have different hybrids would be the same, but they're not. I've changed the adjustments a little bit, but generally they are too much either way. So I kind of hate to mess with them. As I said that, I've messed with the fertilizer a whole lot since I got that about 10, 11 gallons per acre area. I keep the nut pretty tight on that adjustment.

Frank Lessiter:

Are you fertilizing other than with the planter?

Bob Wildermuth:

Oh yeah. The local fellas here in town in Clinton, in fact they've got the last soil test that I have. I don't think I even have a copy. But they look at it real close and this will pass fall. Now that's another thing. Two years I have put the spring lay down or whatever you want, used to call it plow down, I don't like that idea, fertilizer on. But they've done it in the fall. I'm not very happy with that idea. I've got hills, not really bad, but I do have hills so I always worry about it. Well this year was great. Any rains we had this fall, it wasn't any toad strangles with it. And last year, apparently it wasn't too bad either because it worked. In fact, I had the water checked with an outfit up at the university in, oh gosh, what is it?

Anyway, it doesn't really show much of any fertilizer runoff so that's good. But they did that. So that was on first. Did that now two falls and by golly, that seems to... Well actually this is the third one coming up. And they did it here in December after I finally got everything off. And I had one field with a farm on the farm at the other farm where I grew up, it has some fields that are always bugger. They just try to wash on me and it ticked me off to the point I would think about put the whole darn farm into alfalfa if there was enough people around here milking cows or feeding cattle that needed it, but they aren't. So I haven't done it.

I said to the farm service agency, "What do you think about terraces?" "Okay. It wouldn't be a bad idea." So I put one in, that would be last November I think it was, and a year ago last November. I mean this past November. And then this past spring they did two more. Now they're not real big, but they had things to do and had to work around the weather. I was planting as they were finishing up and that took to the last of April before I finished planting.

Frank Lessiter:

Sure.

Bob Wildermuth:

Or not the last, middle April. Yeah, middle April. Then it got done. So anyway, that was a little bit higher moisture was where I was going when I combined it. But still it was around, let's see, 2021 I think, 2021. So it had come down a lot with that fall we had, we've been lucky that way. What last three falls, something like that and the city dried out. And I try to take advantage of that. I'm trying to get at it, but I just don't like the soybeans, I don't like taking any green beans to town. I think that's stupid. But there's guys that do it every year and I usually wait just a little longer. Okay. Then maybe I lose on the other end. They get too dry. This last year they did. Not every year, but last year they did. And you just have to work around all this stuff.

Frank Lessiter:

Your comment about terraces reminds me of way back in the seventies, it was a soil conservation service agronomist at the time, which is now NRCS, but north of Indianapolis someplace. And he made the comment that at the rate we're going with sod waterways and terraces, it would take us 100 years to get everything under control or we could no-till and get it done in two years.

Bob Wildermuth:

That guy's got a brain, for real.

Frank Lessiter:

Right.

Bob Wildermuth:

Definitely a difference to a certain extent. I can sure see that. I've always done it. I mean I can see it especially on the other farm there. But now I got the terraces to go with the no-till. It was kind of fun when I was planting as he was trying to finish up with the leveling off the area and round the terraces. I kept working a little bit here, a little bit there. Time I got done on both of them I had my short rows in the middle. It was crazy when I came to combine.

Frank Lessiter:

So you talked about the Allis Chalmers no-till planter. When did you start no-tilling? What year was it?

Bob Wildermuth:

Good question. Probably-

Anita Wildermuth:

Before I retired and that was 1998. You were probably three years, four years.

Bob Wildermuth:

Oh, I'd say yeah, probably about 1995 maybe. It's been quite a while.

Frank Lessiter:

So you've been no-till all the way since then.

Bob Wildermuth:

There was like everybody a year or two. And my father had worked with him and he wasn't so sure it was a great idea. The ground that wasn't open, it still had a lot of stock stuff on top. And it also helped better the planter. The last Allis had great big old opener discs. I forget the diameter now, but they were big and it just cut through everything and didn't seem to care. Which is the same with my John Deere one seems to work. I talked to a guy that mentioned there are a couple of them in the circle thing there on John Deere. And I met a guy, just wondered if anybody had any other ideas. And a couple guys, I think they came together and said, "Oh, we don't even have those openers anymore. We don't need them." Oh well, I hadn't tried that yet. I still have them out there in front. And I think I need them, especially this next year, I didn't have the chopper on the back of the combine. I didn't have the teeth sticking out for quite a while until I remembered it. And that makes quite a bit of difference. It ain't exactly a Kilmer carpet, time it's done. Does help to make them a lot smaller. So we'll see how that all goes. But I think it'll be okay. I can work through it.

Frank Lessiter:

Let's talk about soybeans.

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah, I was just going to mention that the one thing I have always tried to do, except this last year, because Soybean Association needed some ground for plots. So the guy came out, he's a farmer north of town of Clinton. He came out with his eight row planter, I believe it was. And he planted it all in 30 inch rows. Well, I'd given up on that a long time ago. And he says, "You know what? Plant your beans." "Well yeah. Okay. What'd you think it'd be worth?" Well, it wasn't a bad price. "Go ahead." Well, I'm not sure I'm going to do that again. I've never replaced guards so many in my life. Only thing I can figure there's just too much old corn stubble and other stuff that was getting in the way in certain places, because generally there was quite a bit in the same place.

And the guards would just break and I'm not going to do that again. What I do and have been doing, I have a, oh boy, I can't even think of the name of the no-till drill I got. But anyway, I try wherever I can to go on a slight diagonal to the cornrows when I plant. Go straight. I go on a diagonal. I like that a lot better. And I also always had a fixed drag. You know what I mean, a fixed drag?

Frank Lessiter:

Yeah.

Bob Wildermuth:

You have to mount it on there and you lift it up and down with a cable when you're going from wherever. And I really need to get new drags. It's made with chain deal. One side, it hangs pretty level and not too strong. You flip them over the other side and it's made for really rooting. And I think either way it wouldn't be too bad anymore. It's really worn out on that one side. But it does help a lot when you're going crossways. And the drill does a halfway decent job of loosening up corn roots and stuff. But then they're kind of laying there, but the drag kind of exposes them really and they don't bother much when you come to combining.

Frank Lessiter:

Sure.

Bob Wildermuth:

And your field is somewhat more level too. It does make a difference. The drag isn't strong. It's not a big rugged thing, but it rolls along there and the openers and so on, on the drill, loosen it up a bit and it makes a big difference. I like that better. I'm going to go back to it. This last year, the tractor that I had using it, I took it to a guy with the drill and said, "You're better at it than me."

There's a lot of bearings on all these damn openers. And there's a few that are shot, but he replaced all of them for me and had the whole month of March he had it. And I took the tractor to it and he says, "Hey, you know your tractor, that clutch isn't so good." Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. Preplay is pretty thin, so he tried to replace that. Well, time I got done, I spent, I don't know, $5,000 there, I think. But I got both of them fixed and I didn't get 20 hours on the drill or the tractor, either one.

Talk about saving money. The other way around the last fall, the fall when I was finishing combining, I had the tank pretty full and spring came along and I had enough diesel fuel, I didn't have to buy any of this last fall or this last spring.

Frank Lessiter:

Wow.

Bob Wildermuth:

I planted my beans. And when I planted my 130 acres of corn, I got by without buying any diesel fuel.

Frank Lessiter:

That's great.

Bob Wildermuth:

It's just savings all over the place if you work at it.

Frank Lessiter:

So your drill, you're probably putting down soybeans maybe in 7 1/2" rows. What plant population would you use?

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah, they're about 8 1/2", I think closest.

Frank Lessiter:

Okay, good.

Bob Wildermuth:

But the amount per acre is, it's over 100,000, I know that. 100,000, 125,000 maybe, something like that. I often think when I come to, because I'm planting on angle, that I generally am lifting the drill. When one side of the drill is in what I've already planted as end rows. So it's always heavier when I come along with the combine. But the thing that surprises me every year, normally every year, those where it's doubled up like that, they are taller. Okay, what the heck caused that? Yeah, maybe they had to fight more for sunlight. I don't know. But they're taller. So I don't know if I'm really hurting or not for my yield by planting in that.

And then of course the other side of the drill, if nothing else, I leave it just so I know where the heck to come sometimes when I come back. If I'm trying to get in a certain section, it's not quite up to where I planted on the end rows, but that's okay. It's usually not that much. But I like to do it that way. It just seems like it's, but I can't do it in all my fields now that I got those dumb terrace. Now I'm probably not going to be able to do it quite as often over there at that farm. But we'll see how that works, now that I get a chance this next year.

McCain Vogel:

We'll come back to the episode in a moment. But first I'd like to thank our sponsor Sourced by Sound Agriculture for supporting today's podcast. Sourced by Sound Agriculture unlocks more of the nitrogen and phosphorus in your fields so you can rely less on expensive fertilizer. This foliar application has a low use rate and you can mix it right into your tank. Check out Source, it's like caffeine for microbes. Learn more at sound.ag. Now, let's get back to the conversation.

Frank Lessiter:

What are you doing for fertilizer on no-till soybeans?

Bob Wildermuth:

I can't give you the exact analysis or anything. I don't remember exactly, but it's a light duty fertilizer that I guess it's helped a little bit. I was up over 50 bushels the acre this year. Well, partly a lot more than I could have believed, especially in those plots. Some of those plots were over 60. I thought, "Well they must doing that. You got to be kidding. How'd that happen?" But that was pretty good sized plot. I had a corn plot this year too. All of this was with people from Delongs. And as I say, the Soybean Association was above the state. I don't know why they didn't plant it closer to a big highway or something, but they couldn't seem to find any ground to do it. And I said, "Sure. I don't care, what the heck. Put it over there where I had corn. Good land up there."

Frank Lessiter:

You look to me like you're somebody that really watches your costs. You don't have a big operation. It looks to me like you got low machinery value because you keep running tractors and combines and planters and drills for many years, that's pretty true, isn't it?

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah. You better believe it. Combines are $9,500. So I spend a lot of money on that without any trouble. John Deere, a couple of Sprint, it has to be two years ago now when I was or, well, three quarters of the way through it, got one big field south of my buildings here. And the fellow living in the other house, he just loved to go out and run stuff. Always said he can't afford to be a farmer himself. He worked for Delong's, still is. But he was here for five years, growing his family and all, but he still likes to come back and run the combine. And one year he planted all my soybeans. He thought that was great fun.

Anyway, he went out there this Sunday morning and he said, "Bob," he calls back, "Something ain't right." "What the heck?" "Better come look." "Oh no, the damn combine." Well, it's a three corner deal so where I stop and emptied it into the truck is quite a ways from the actual crop itself. And sure enough the damn thing tried to burn itself up overnight. It didn't make it. It burned up a spot, a 10 by 10 place underneath the combine, so there's nothing there but stubble and no wind or anything. So it didn't go anywhere, but it sure screwed up the combine. I think it was about $19,000 or something like that.

Couldn't get it going again and insurance paid for all but about, I don't know, $3,500 or something like that. I bugged them a bit. Well, you don't have a new combine. It's old." Well gee, prices are the same. But anyway, saved for most of it. But it's been working since. It's okay, got it fixed. John Deere guys work real hard. Had put all new wiring underneath there. The whole dog gone main wires that go to the cab and everything melted. And put in a new Peter House chain. The chain that goes from the head to the rotors or not the rotors, they don't have rotors. But anyway, that chain and several pieces of the sheet metal here and there. Well, you can just imagine. Then the windshield, but I thought it was wrecked, but it was just dirtier than hell.

Frank Lessiter:

That's good.

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah. It got hot enough and then it just cooked itself out. But I mean otherwise it's been a good combine and just have those things that go goofy. But it's been all right otherwise, that's for sure. That's a note that I put to myself too, to mention that I try to keep the cost down for sure.

Frank Lessiter:

Right. Well, I talked a couple weeks ago at the No-Till Conference in St. Louis. I talked to John Ashelman who farms in eastern Washington in the Palouse area. He and his son had just priced a new combine and it would be in those areas because they're steep slopes, it would be a self-leveling combine, so that's an extra $80,000 or so. But anyway, they priced a combine. It was $1.2M is what it was going to cost them. And they found a one year old combine instead. But here you are with one combine, $1.2M. Unbelievable.

Bob Wildermuth:

I know it. One thing I noticed this year, you mentioned that. And I hadn't really paid that much attention, but other guys were finishing up, some of the big guys even were there. And on the road I saw a combine or two up around Jamesville and heading towards the John Deere dealer out there east. And then when I was there getting stuff, my God, what these guys, oh, they're done already. They just bring them in. And this year we're getting even more of them because the guys are a little farther ahead, four guys are coming in and to get us to go over their combines and make sure they're in good shape for next year. And I was talking to a fella here not long ago, he had a brand new John Deere. I don't know what he's got, 2,500 acres, something like that. Nearly all grain, he doesn't have any cattle problem, but he figures to get a new combine every year. Well, he couldn't get it this year. He had to actually run his old combine for another year. Terrible situation. And I guess now that the season's all over and what I've heard, he got his combine now and he's not so sure he wants it after he found the cost. But more that come to do that. They're fixed on trading every year.

Frank Lessiter:

Well you got a limited acreage with 240 or so acres. No-till has been good to you. You don't have to hire any outside labor probably. You've cut your costs. What do you think no-till is worth per acre in value to you? Extra value?

Bob Wildermuth:

Oh man. Oh gosh. And with all them changes and everything, it's real hard to guess. I betcha... I don't know, would I be wrong in saying $150 at least?

Frank Lessiter:

No. It's all over the place. Some people say $70, some people say $200. I think you're in the ballpark and with your operation, it's probably a good guess on your part.

Bob Wildermuth:

I mean, this is a different kind of year with the per bushel. They talked me into selling a little ahead. I didn't really want to, I just keep thinking it'll be like taking a chance. So I finally sold a thousand bushel of corn and a little bit later, 1,000 bushel of soybeans here back when it was growing good and looking good. And, shoot, I beat those prices pretty damn easy thing to have any, and that's all sold. In fact, the DeLong Company, I didn't think they'd take it, but they did. They said that I could not get paid for the beans or the corn till the 1st of January if I want. Sure. I said, "Yeah, I sure do."

Frank Lessiter:

So let's talk about the National No-Tillage Conference. You and Anita have been to a number of them. How many of our conferences do you think you've been to?

Bob Wildermuth:

Well, the tag that you gave me that I put on my Hello thing was 25 this year.

Frank Lessiter:

Wow, that's great.

Anita Wildermuth:

I'm in 21 or 22.

Frank Lessiter:

Well that's great. Out of 31, you've made 25 of them. You're kind of a low acreage farmer. Somebody would say, "Why do you go to the No-Till Conference? What are you going to get out of it?"

Bob Wildermuth:

Every year there's something. You'd have to have your ears plugged and not going if there wasn't something. It's to do with the depth of planting. And then of course, this landed last year and this year Gilmer brought up that thing about where the fertilizer goes.

Frank Lessiter:

Sure, stratification.

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah. Stratification. Well that drove me crazy thinking about it, but I didn't do anything about it. But I think still that as a few guys are at, well golly, we're still getting crop improvements. It must be working. Dig out a plant, look at it, where is all the roots, the big bushy roots? They're not far down, they're right there in that top six inches or so. So I don't know. I still think that we're getting a heck of a lot of use out of that fertilizer. Maybe if you've been feeding cattle all these years and years and dumping manure, well that stuff is a little different after all these years when you've been really piling it out there. It's obvious that, heck, I can still see just a wee bit on a couple farm places where, man, that dad gum stuff looks different. And that's been a long time. I don't know how it can happen.

There's a big difference if you do have cow manure and pigs. There's a couple guys around me, one of them that's been to three, four, at least no-till, guys, Gary Summer here. He's two years now. Last year and then again this year. He's gotten that guy from over north of you there got way over, I don't know how many chickens, but he can't find a place to go with the manure.

Frank Lessiter:

Oh yeah.

Bob Wildermuth:

So he's built up a business and the guy comes and they have a semi-dump trailer and they'll dump whatever they need on a certain field or what they think they want. And then the guy comes around going to all the different places. He's got one of these Italian tractors that goes about 35 miles an hour or whatever down the road. And they come out and he has a pickup. So the two guys have to show up for a while anyway, because he has to get the pickup for the guy so he can go home and they pull that down and manure spreader, which is a big son of a gun. And it don't take long at all to haul off, oh three, four semi-loads, whatever. And I haven't been able to get back if they really feel it's of a big value or not.

It seems to be a interesting proposition that's going on with at least a couple guys here. I still haven't got to them. Gary Summers, who's come to several conventions. He keeps running off with his wife to someplace to visit-

Anita Wildermuth:

Africa, Australia.

Bob Wildermuth:

Yeah. They've been out looking, well, he never was married till he was about 40.

Anita Wildermuth:

More than that.

Bob Wildermuth:

Maybe more. And he's been having fun with life now.

Frank Lessiter:

Good for him. Hey, I want to talk to you for a minute on a little lighter note. One of your off season sources of income for years was running trucks. And we would have a No-Till Conference in St. Louis and you would show up in a big truck and go to the No-Till Conference and might go on to Tulsa, Oklahoma and deliver this truck or something. Tell me about that. What was going on with that?

Bob Wildermuth:

Well, that went on for quite a while till I got a hernia here about five years ago, four years. That's probably four. After that, I just wasn't 100%. We went to Florida and had a hell of a time. I wasn't really happy down there. I'd go take a nap. And so came back and the guy did some more work and finally it's straightened out. But in the meantime, it took a while and I got a little older. And my guessing now that is the reason I never got called back like they said they were going to do was because, "Oh man, you're getting older." They never want to tell me that.

Frank Lessiter:

Tell our listeners what you were doing with this truck.

Bob Wildermuth:

Well, yeah, anybody that knows or sees red, white, and blue trucks delivering shingles and siding and windows and whatever running around their city and town, it's ABC Supply out of Beloit. That's only 10 miles west of me, actually a shade less than 10. And they've got 800 stores in the United States. Well 800 stores takes one heck of a lot of trucks. Not all of them were built up from the frame, make their own, so on. They just couldn't do it all. Because the place over south of Toledo, which I can't think of the name of them, we'd take sometimes the chassis that get delivered in Beloit and well darn, now we got to take them to Toledo. So then I take a chassis, go over there. Once in a while I'd get taken to someplace else. Usually I didn't have that kind luck, but that's pretty good payday if I could do that.

That was what most of them were is just going somewhere USA and I mean somewhere. It could be either coast. I know one month I remember going to, I think it was Maryland and then the other one, I went out to California, I think it was. And man, that was pretty good pay too. But still there's a lot of going. But most of them worked closer to me. I went to New Orleans or Louisville and Indianapolis. Put a name on a town, if it had an ABC store, I probably was there sooner or later, but that's what I was doing. And part-time when I wasn't farming around here, I'd be doing that. It was kind of fun. I have to admit it, it's kind of fun. I miss it.

Frank Lessiter:

When I was growing up north of Detroit, we had a neighbor who had a farmer from Australia stay with them for a year. And just 10 miles south of us is Pontiac, which was General Motors, or GMC truck plant. This guy from Australia would drive these trucks and these chassis like you did across the country. And that was his way of seeing America as an Aussie. And it was pretty great. But he said once in a while, in February when you had a chassis to go and they were driving it and you were sitting on an orange crate, it wasn't too comfortable.

Bob Wildermuth:

No, they're not like that. They wouldn't, maybe then. Yeah, that wouldn't pass US, you can't do that. Got to be put together like any vehicle with all your seat belts and everything.

Frank Lessiter:

So you and Anita would take these trips and you would tow your car behind the truck?

Bob Wildermuth:

Well, she did a few. No, I had a Ranger pickup and I had it rigged up with a pretty darn heavy hitch on it. But that's the pain and I'd have to bolt a temporary hitch on the back of the hitch. And that takes time in both ends. Towards the end, I was quite a few times I got to figuring things out and I could, if it was a big place like, oh, I don't know, Atlanta or someplace in California or Arizona or wherever where they had Southwest, I could ride Southwest back to Chicago cheaper. And then ride the Red Line up to in town there and then get to the Amtrak station and there's a little cab work to get from the south when they're off the Red Line up to the other one at the Amtrak station and get Van Gelder Bus.

And then for $30 I would get up in that neighborhood, get up to South Beloit. And then sometimes I had my little pickup there, and then sometimes I'd have to grab another cab and ride up on the hill there where ABC's everything was, and there's pickup waiting. But I found out that there was times that no, that isn't really worth it driving that thing and all. And then I got a lot of time better off if I could, I pick up a flight. And so I was doing a fair amount of flying for a dumb farmer guy. You got used to these guys, how to do them.

Speaker 5:

That's it for this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovators Podcast. Thanks again to our sponsors Source by Sound Agriculture for helping to make this series possible. You can find more podcasts about no-till topics and strategies at no-tillfarmer.com/podcasts. A transcript of this episode will be available there shortly. For our entire staff here at No-Till Farmer, I'm McCain Vogel. Thanks for listening. Keep on no-tilling and have a great day.