Sunday, April 25, 2010

What makes farming fun




Every year I say "I have never seen anything like this before." Now I have only been farming about 6 years so that isn't much of a statement. But it is interesting to talk with my neighbors-some who have been farming 40 or 50 years and they are saying the same thing.

We went from too wet to too dry overnight this year. I planted corn a week ago last Sunday that was really too wet, had to clean mud off the planter. We finished the following Thursday-and a week later that seed is still laying in the ground in dry dirt not even sprouted.

I guess this will be a good test of wether it is more important to plant early or wait for good conditions.

No use worrying about it since whats done is done, time to move on, corn is in gods hands now. So yesterday we switched the planter over to prepare to plant beans. There has been a fair amount of rain in the last 36 hours so I would say we are looking at late next week at best.

The opportunity to never stop learning is really cool. Some people think it would be boring driving the tractor back and forth across the field all day, but with so much to plan and think about boredom and farming just don't go together for me.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Corn is Planted!!

We finished planting corn about 8:30 last Friday night-April 16. Exactly 126 days after we finished harvest-a new record by over 30 days. I hope to never break that record again.

After corn planting Julie and the kids and I planted 150 Christmas trees. 25 of each of Canaan firs, Frasier Firs, Red Pines, Blue Spruce, Scotch Pines, Norway Spruce. In 4-5 years we hope to have enough trees to give away to family and fiends who want to come cut their own tree.

Corn planted 8 days ago is up, also amazing for this time of year. Today we are switching the planter over to beans, but it is so dry I doubt we will try to plant anything before we get some rain-there is a good chance for rain later in the week so maybe we can hit it early next week.

Bean planting is going to rough on my 43 year old body this year-350 bags of seed moved at least 2 times by hand-no doubt I am going to feel it. I know now I am still feeling the beating from all the tree planting.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Planting Time Again!

It has been a long time since my last post, but last year was so exhausting I just didn't have the gumption to write about it anymore. The last couple weeks of good weather have really got my energy levels jumping and I am getting excited about farming again.

Some big changes coming this year, we bought a much newer combine and are construction our first grain bin. Future blog posts on those will be coming. Other than that the only thing that has happened this year has been bookwork and rebuilding lower units on planter to get ready for this spring.

Finally started planting corn this past Saturday, which was a full two weeks earlier than last years start. It was a little wetter than we would have liked but I was able to get all the refuge corn planted, and can now take all that nasty insecticide stuff off the planter.

Sunday I went out and tested the sprayer and sprayed the waterways that had some giant ragweed problems the last couple years-hopefully a shot of banvel will take them out.

The weather for the next week looks FANTASTIC so I am taking the next couple days off work, and with any luck will finish up this weekend-well before the time we started last year.

We are about 75% beans this year so hopefully this great weather holds into bean planting season-which should start the last week of April.