Hard to find time to blog

Rain has been plentiful, so no excuse there-but I have had a hard time getting in front of computer. Looks like we are going to get a good spraying window this weekend and early next week so I figure I should blog something before that starts.

The waterway and roadside grass has really taken off the last two weeks-the neverending mowing saga will start this weekend.

All the corn has has first pass of spray, 2nd shot we will probably wait another week or two-to get closer to canopy.

My no-till bean fields are flat out embarrasing-Wife is beginning to wonder if I am raising wild yellow mustard this year instead of beans. The dry days have been so cold and cloudy I didn't want to spray, and every other day it has been wet.

One lesson I learned this year is fall spraying 100% works-you can see to the foot where I did a little roundup last fall just before first frost-with Roundup being so cheap will be hitting every acre this fall if possible.

Finished Planting-2010-I hope.

Farming is a lot of things but it sure isn’t repetitive. We really caught some good breaks this spring and finished up planting beans on Mothers day. Last year I am pretty sure we were into the first week of June, and were still trying to plant corn on Mothers day. We have had a lot of cold rain since then-which won't help the stand much-but at least it is in the ground.

Julie didn't get the best Mothers day dinner (Jimmy Johns sandwiches on the seed trailer in the field)-but I really appreciated the visit, breaks up a long day. I owe her one to make up for it.


I know there is a benefit to spreading out your planting dates, but I was so gun-shy after the last two years that when a decent window opened up I just could not stop. Started planting on Thursday morning and finished Sunday afternoon. One day I planted about 130-140 acres, I really felt like the old marathon days at the end of that 18 hour day. Thank goodness for GPS, first time I ever planted after dark.

Something else new was Mothers day was the first time I ever planted beans with the heat on in the tractor all day.

I thought I had enough beans to finish and ran out with about 15 acres left, thinking a shot in the dark I called my seed dealer at 9:00am on Sunday morning-sure enough they were there! Talk about good service, they were able to come through and get me the seed so I could finish!!! When I went down to pick it up there was a line of other doing the same thing.



I talked to a couple seed dealers and they said during that 4 day window they had about 70% of the beans go out of the warehouse….so I guess I wasn’t experiencing anything that wasn’t being dealt with by many others.

There were some really cool moments too-I saw a hawk grab a sparrow out the air and fly off with him, and saw two coyotes chase a really large deer over ½ mile. I didn’t think coyotes would go after a full grown deer but I can now say definitively they will.