Roading Equipment

Moving equipment 14ft wide even when folded up on roads with two 9ft lanes with a fair amount of traffic and sometimes no shoulder has given me an entirely new perspective when driving around others moving farm equipment. You don’t need to worry about the farm equipment-they are not going to go fast or make any sudden moves-but something about the presence of equipment on the road makes almost everyone in the vicinity in cars behave like maniacs.

Just a couple examples:
1) I was sitting waiting to turn left with my left turn signal on, needed to wait about 20 seconds due to oncoming traffic -and was passed on the left by some crazy at about 50mph. Had I not seen him coming and had decided to turn rather than wait-which would have been doable-he would have been a goner.

2) Some people will pass if there is one extra inch of room and they can clear oncoming traffic by 50 feet. Others will not pass unless you pull completely off the road-even though there is plenty of space and time and I am waving them around.

3) There is a stretch of road about 1 mile long with quite a deep shoulder, so I could not pull over. Witnessed at least 3 suicide passes-Several times I had 1 car pull behind another while the first was still passing me. Once a 3rd car actually pulled in behind #2!!! How does #3 not know that #1 or #2 aren’t cutting it close? Scared the hell out of me just watching it.

Notes for my friends with sense:
1) The law actually states you must slow down to the speed of the vehicle you are passing before overtaking it. Please do this for your own safety, and I must say getting passed unexpectedly at 75mph when you are doing 19 scares the poop out of you.

2) When you are around farm equipment-watch the other drivers as closely if not closer than the farmer. When overtaking someone on the left see if you can get a view up to the right-for some reason people pulling onto roads don’t feel they need to consider that someone may be passing that piece of slow moving equipment-thus pulling right into your path.

3) Dirty looks or any other gestures at the guy on the tractor don’t make the tractor go any faster.

4) It is not always possible for equipment to pull over, sometimes it can be too soft of shoulder and equipment may get stuck-or dropoff may damage the equipment. Also be prepared for equipment to unexpectedly move over even farther into opposite lane if there is a mailbox or some other roadside obstruction.

Corn is Planted!!

Corn here is finally planted. It was a long, tough, but exciting week last week. I think I counted about 20 hours sleep over a 5 day period, just now getting my life back in order to have time to update this blog. Tuesday and Wednesday last week were spent spraying. Thurs and Fri corn planted pretty good but was a little wet, corn planted Sat and Sun was really into nice conditions. Moving equipment 30 miles to the new farm was interesting to say the least, my next post will have some observations about driving around farm equipment, I have a whole new perspective after this week. I finished planting the North farm around noon on Sat, as I was preparing to move home the thunder started and I got rained on pretty good on the way home. We ended up not getting any rain at home and I was able to continue planting late into Sat night-I felt like the luckiest guy in the world to finish that close ahead of a rain and to be able to plant another farm that evening. Would have like to started bean planting this week, but it is starting out just like corn season-with rain forecast for 5 of next 7 days.

Here is a video from inside the tractor.

Corn Up-But More Delays

The corn planted April 25 is up. Bad news is it has been wet since then. It has also been cool so corn sat in cold wet soil for a while. We were able to get out and get that corn sprayed yesterday, but then in the evening we got another 3/4 of an inch. I was really hoping to start planting on Monday the 11th, but looks unlikely now.

Some of the larger farmers around are really starting to worry, and looking at renting extra equipment to plant as quickly as possible once the weather does break. 2008 was the latest spring I had seen in my short farming career. Looking back at last years records we started planting corn on May 2 and finished on the 7th. Now on the 8th we have barely started. We are now getting to the date where yield will really start to be impacted. I heard 1973 was a disaster and a lot of corn was planted mid June, but it was a terrible year with 40 bushel yields.

FINALLY Planting

Conditions were borderline but finally some corn in planted. 1st day problems with new planter as usual but ran pretty well. Didn't get in a hurry and got about 50-60 acres planted. Forcast looks wet wet wet for the next week but I am way less stressed with at least something in the ground-even if it is only a small percentage.

With as warm and wet as it has been I am going to have to switch back to spraying before planting anymore-going to take a lot more roundup-but that is what mother nature has given us.

I don't want to complain about rain too much as we may be begging for it in July and August, but if the forcast hold I would bet not much will happen before the 2nd week of May.

Still Nothing to Report

Still too cold and wet here to do anything in the field. Corn is all labeled and laid out in the order it will be planted. I spent about 20 minutes walking around the shed looking at equipment and trying to find something to do, for the first time in 5 years I can honestly say I can't find anything to work on-it feels odd. Suppose I could do some stuff on the combine but that just seems wrong before anything is planted.

From the look of the weather probably not much going to happen before May 1.

The girls and I did go out and picked up trash in the ditches. What is wrong with people? We picked up almost a 50 gallon trash can full of bottles, cans, cigarette packages, etc. Found a 1/2 full can of hairspray and a cell phone charger, lots of other junk. Apparently Bud Light bottles and Miller cans are the most popular beers around here. I wish these people would think for a second, a glass bottle can ruin a $800 tractor tire when mowing roads. I would love to catch someone doing it and follow them home and dump my trash in their yard for a few days.

Watching and Waiting

Still cold and wet here, I don't anticipate any fieldwork this week or next week. Soil temps need to be about 55 degrees for corn and it is getting to the low 40s at night for the next week.

Probably a little premature but I went and picked up all chemicals for this year. It looks like the late start to planting will push planting and spraying times together so one less thing to do once the planter gets rolling. While it wasn't dry enough to do any fieldwork we were able to get the 4 wheeler out and do some spot spraying in the worst of the weedy areas and pick up some rocks.

Profit margins are going to be a lot tighter this year so I was able to save a couple bucks and acre by getting chemicals in bulk tanks. We will combine them in an inductor as they get loaded into the sprayer. This will mean a lot less handling and disposing of all the 2.5 gallon plastic jugs.

Rain rain go away

Lots of rain here in the last week. I am starting to sound like a broken record with not much new information. I got the disk out Sat morning and tried to work a couple gulleys shut but they were too wet. Some flatter and dryer spots would have worked well but being no-till I don't touch those.

Trying to keep busy-putting new Air conditioner in big tractor and piddling around the shop.

Even if it would dry out the 10 day forecast still looks cold, so I doubt any corn will be planted in this area in the next 10 days. I am changing my anticipated start date from April 13 to April 20.