The Corn

I bought our first 5 batches of corn from the Elevator in Vermont Indiana.... Actually I don't think Vermont is really a town, I think it's just an elevator about 5 miles northwest of Greentown Indiana but they do have an official-looking "Welcome to Vermont Indiana" sign, so I'm unsure.

On the first trip (Nov 24), I bought 10 - 75 lb bags of #2 shelled corn for $1.91 per bushel (13.9 bushels). They didn't seem to be really concerned about exact figures when filling up the bags and some bags weighed quite a bit more than 75 lbs. The guy who was filling the bags said he could fit 100lbs in a bag if that's how I wanted it. 2 or 3 of the bags couldn't have held much more corn so I'd guess they were 90-pounders. I'm going to guestimate that I actually received 825 lbs of corn or roughly 15 bushels. The guy who filled the bags and helped me load them said he likes to make sure people get more than they order. Those 15 bushels lasted almost exactly a week and it was almost 60 degrees 1 day that week.

The bags cost 75 cents to purchase but are reusable so I made sure to take care of them and also I made sure not to lose the twine that was used to tie the tops of the bags. I wasn't sure how much weight my old truck (1978 F-150) could handle on that first trip (the frame is rusting out), but it did just fine so I decided to up the ante on the second trip.

On the second trip (November 30) I brought my 10 empty bags back and bought 5 new bags. This time the bag-filler guy was much more accurate and the bags were fairly uniformly filled. I think he hit the 75 lb per bag target spot on, so I ended up buying and receiving 1,125 pounds of corn or 20.8 bushels at $1.99 per bushel.

On Dec 7 2005 I loaded up my 15 empty bags and made the third trip to Vermont. Things were a little different this time: Corn was $2.09 per bushel and the boss came out to help? and all of a sudden, the guy who was filling the bags started weighing them :). They were trying to do the math and I volunteered to drive my empty truck over to the scales and weigh it and then drive back over when we were done loading corn and weigh it again and pay any overages. They boss liked that idea. If the boss had just stayed inside the filler guy wouldn't have been more than 10 pounds off. But the boss decided they had too much weight so they only put about 30 pounds in the last bag. After weighing the full truck full he said "well it looks like I owe you 60 pounds I'll fill another bag." I offered to pay another $.75 for the 16th bag but he declined, and I was on my way.

Now we're getting to the good part... we have an 8,000 bushel grain bin on our property that is filled to the top with corn. A friend of mine who happens to be a farmer has used this bin off and on for the last 4 years. He always tries to pay us around $700 for using our bin. I always tell him no, I'm not in the grain storage business and refuse his money. The grain bin is just sitting there so if you can use it great. If it breaks and you'd ike to continue using it then you'll have to fix it (it's a dryer too but he doesn't use the dryer as his is much nicer and more automatic). This year he's making us a deal on the corn and we're accepting it. He also plows the snow on the driveway and offers to help us whenever/however he can, he's a great a guy.

We're not using the corn from the bin on our property though.... it's too hard to get the corn out of it and I have no scales to weigh how much I take. So I built 2 - 4' X 6' X 4' wood boxes that I've put on my flatbed trailer (actually it's my Dad's trailer) and drive over and weigh the truck and tailer empty and then fillup at his place and then weigh them full. We filled the boxes about 3/4 full this time as I was getting pretty worried about my old truck and the weight that the trailer could handle and I kept thinking my boxes might burst apart at the seams while driving down the road. Next time I think we'll top them off.

I'm going to put $2.20 in as the price per bushel for this corn for everyone else's benefit.

Total corn purchases so far:

Note we did not burn all of the corn we purchased this year... we have about 80 bushels left over that we'll burn next year.

$26.39	825 lbs	14.73 bushels	$1.91/bushel
$41.56	1,125 lbs	20.09 bushels	$1.99/bushel
$44.07	1,125 lbs	20.09 bushels	$2.09/bushel
$51.28	1,260 lbs	22.50 bushels	$2.15/bushel
$47.14	1,200 lbs	21.43 bushels	$2.20/bushel
$248.29	6,320 lbs	112.86 bushels	$2.20/bushel
$276.56	7,040 lbs	125.71 bushels	$2.20/bushel
$277.86	6,820 lbs	126.3 bushels	$2.20/bushel
= _______________________
$1,013.78	15,715lbs	463.7 bushels

From Nov 24 to Dec 7 we burnt aproximately 1,950 lbs of corn for an average daily consumption of 139.3 lbs of corn per day (2.48 bushels).

From Nov 24 to Dec 24 we burnt aproximately 4,335 lbs of corn (77.4 bushels) for an average daily consumption of 144.5 lbs of corn per day (2.58 bushels).

From Nov 24 to Jan 7 we burnt aproximately 5,535 lbs of corn (98.8 bushels) for an average daily consumption of 125.8 lbs of corn per day (2.25 bushels).

From Nov 24 to Jan 27 we burnt aproximately 8,695 lbs of corn (155.3 bushels) for an average daily consumption of 135.9 lbs of corn per day (2.42 bushels). It has been freakishly warm the last week of December and pretty much all of January.

From Nov 24 to Feb 13 we burnt aproximately 11,855 lbs of corn (211.7 bushels) for an average daily consumption of 146.36 lbs of corn per day (2.61 bushels). It has still been unseasonably warm but closer to the norms.

From Nov 24 to Jan March 5 we burnt aproximately 15,375 lbs of corn (274.6 bushels) for an average daily consumption of 150.7 lbs of corn per day (2.7 bushels). The weather has been fairly warm overall but we did have a few really cold in February.

As of May 5, we've spent $850.00 on corn, $9 on wood pellets, $30 in gasoline and $50 on propane to heat our house. We never turned the thermostat down to save money, we only turned it down when we were too hot. We have about 2 tons of corn in stock, which should get us a prety good start on next year's winter. On calm 30 degree days you can barely tell that you've used any corn at all... on the 6 degree days you can watch the corn in the hopper drop.