Man was meant to work and 60 definitely isn't old anymore.

I'm not going to cry for anyone who has to work until 65.

I think I have about 10 more years for the kids and then the rest for myself.

I think 71.5 is the latest you can let a 401k sit before being forced to withdraw. I hope I can make it that long.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Yes and no. Darkside cannot do what he does at 65 years old. A lawer can work until he dies at his desk, provided there is no dementia.

_________________

Half of America can barely make it up the stairs at 60. The other half, dementia is kicking in.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Darko and other men of trade type work can work to 65. I see many though end up getting into supervisory or foreman type roles. I guess 67 seems to be the latest rule for max but I am going to try and go at 62. I am fortunate thought to have a supportive system through work with outrageous matching and accelerated options including healthcare.

Anyway all of that said and speaking more to GD's post 71 seems risky to wait until. So many I know of you would otherwise think were mostly okay kick off around 71.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

Good news for the workers of the world. They changed the RMD regulations last year so now you don't need to take a distribution until the year after you turn 72 instead of 70.5.

So that gives you an extra year or two to work. The RMD usually isn't much anyway and if you are in a Roth 401k you don't need to take it at all.

_________________
You know me like that.

Hopefully I will be able to work until the day I die.

Nothing interests me less than retirement.

_________________

Poor Jackref

_________________
2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

My wife's still praying I fall to a grisly industrial accident, and the sooner the better. Double the insurance payout. Visitation at noon, the equipment auction starts at 1. Get there early to get your number!

I'm planning on going out at 60, five years and five months from now, keeping my same position until then. I could find something less taxing physically, or just get back into better shape. Retirement means full-time farming, and maybe actually trying to make a profit at it instead of just depreciation. I'd love to get ten years of farming in, then sell it off- none of the kids want it. Maybe by then I can learn to sit around a little.

Do you have one of those harvesters you can mount on a Super M?

I’d take that off your hands just for nostalgia.

_________________
You know me like that.

What in the wide, wide world of sports does that mean Dr?

_________________
There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Life expectancy in the U.S. is declining (Thanks neoliberalism!). 60 is now "older" than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

_________________

My personal fantasy is to live on about 100 acres and have about 10 cows and make cheese. Alas that would require divorcing my wife first.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Hatzer Nordstrom has them at some of their auctions... often old Ms too.

first wife implies a second

learn from your mistakes

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

It's an incredibly dangerous piece of farm equipment that would rip the flesh off a man's bones if he wasn't paying attention.

Back before people cared about safety.

Like this -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3rvsMcMV_U

_________________
You know me like that.

Is farm work these days all that physically difficult? It looks like a lot of driving machines.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I've owned a couple of the pull-type NI pickers, we didn't have a big enough tractor for the mounted style. We had IH tractors until the great barn fire in 1950, since then it's a Long Green Line.

I can recall at least three old-timers around our area sporting the four-inch stump below the elbow look compliments of a mechanical harvester. Kinda like there needed to be at least one per county.

I can't say for certain since I've been out the game for quite a while.

But, I would say yes. There is a lot of prep that goes into it prior to sitting in an a/c cab and listening to the Cubs. I hear some tractors have satellite TV now.

The manual labor piece of it has most likely been reduced but there would still be plenty of it.

_________________
You know me like that.

_________________

My Dad and I were walking beans one time and the guy (we knew him) in the field next to us was cultivating or something and he leaned over the PTO behind the tractor and a string from his overalls was hanging down, got caught, ripped every stitch of clothing off him in a second and broke many, many bones throughout his body. He did eventually recover but he was never the same.

My Dad and I were watching as the ambulance came to them. We knew something bad was going down. Lucky someone else was with him. He was probably a mile away from us.

_________________
You know me like that.

There is a ton of manual labor still involved in many crops besides corn, soybeans, wheat and other grains. Very few of the farmers perform any of the work, though, it's mostly migrant labor, at least here in the fruit/vegetable production area. Any time you produce livestock, the labor increases, but most dairies are either robot milkers or all Spanish labor. My buddy farms almost 3000 acres of grain with only his adult son and a bit of part-time help; he wears cargo shorts and flip flops about 8 months a year to work.

I was surprised how quickly you can get bored/distracted while operating on a big field with GPS guidance, with tillage at least. One pass down a mile-long field may take ten minutes or more, and after each turn you are really only watching for something to plug up. The phone browser gets real attractive. When harvesting, there's so much more going on that I didn't find myself losing focus, maybe because i didn't want to run half a field dumping a bunch of corn on the ground every round. I mostly haul crop from the field to the grain facility, so traffic keeps you alert. I can't say what it's like at the end of your third straight 90 hour week.

Manual labor is reduced but you’ll still get the crap beat out of you some days. But we have livestock and that is different than row crop. Never seen a tractor with satellite tv but have streamed games on an iPad while working mile long fields. I’ll say the body doesn’t feel all that great after 16 hours in a tractor and this is one of those new, nice ones.

It’s all easy until something goes wrong.

When I used to cultivate, we had that stick inside the front wheel to line up with the rows as a guide. I sucked at it.

I'd turn around and I'd plowed under half a row because I didn't have it lined up right. My Dad knew I'd never be a farmer.

_________________
You know me like that.

I cultivate 16 rows at a time with gps at decent speed. Still suffer iron blight.

What's iron blight?

When you cultivate the crop out instead of the weeds.

That's what you call it when the cultivator shovel gets into the corn row (because the good Dr. has fallen asleep at the wheel) and digs the plants out and they dry up and die. You want that to happen to the weeds, but not the corn. It looks like an old-time crop disease called blight.

Last spring I helped plant beans- they use a 6/11 row planter in addition to the 12 row planter. The big one is GPS guided, but the small one still uses marker arms and the eye of the operator. I still felt the pressure to get it seeded evenly, which is challenging on hillsides and around woods .