Life on the Farm

[bjrogg]

Beautiful picture BJ.
 Pappy

Thanks Pappy, but the picture doesn’t do it justice. Somethings are just a lot better in person.

I really do enjoy a beautiful sunrise and a hot cup of coffee.

Bjrogg

[Buckskinner]

Ah the anticipation for spring is something on the farm...  Gonna get real busy for you soon!  Kinda miss those days although I really don't miss relying on the weather.   Last years near drought around here was hard on the remaining farmers around here.  Luckily there were some timely tenths that fell and salvaged the crop.   

Prayers for your brother and your loss of friends.

[M2A]

Nice pic of the night sky BJ. Always liked astronomy and know very little but still is fun to watch the planets move around. Cant wait for the james webb to start sending pictures back to nasa.

Rain here for now but should be clearing up soon. Need to work on some limb loppers in the shop anyway. I see the light at the end of the pruning job but its still a ways out there. They ought to be sticking the 1st corn in the ground soon. I use to be part of that but haven't in a few years now. The idea is to be picking for the 4th of July. Sweet corn brings the people to the market.
Mike     

[bjrogg]

Ah the anticipation for spring is something on the farm...  Gonna get real busy for you soon!  Kinda miss those days although I really don't miss relying on the weather.   Last years near drought around here was hard on the remaining farmers around here.  Luckily there were some timely tenths that fell and salvaged the crop.   

Prayers for your brother and your loss of friends.

It really is indescribable Scott.

Usually by the end of harvest you are pretty well done in. Then you spend the whole winter getting ready for next year. There’s always more to do than you can get done.

The final push comes and priorities change. Fertilizer tanker. Small engines and pumps, field cultivator, seed and a whole bunch more that have to be ready.

You test everything as best you can and undoubtedly the first 5 acres are spent fine tuning everything. And nothing works the way it’s supposed to. After about 10 acres we usually have everything clicking.

And then there’s the weather. Doubt ours is much more forgiving than yours. We try to stack things in our favor with underground drainage, but that only goes so far.

We want to be ready to really get stuff done when the conditions are right.

Thanks so much everyone for the prayers. I believe in them. They are much appreciated.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Nice pic of the night sky BJ. Always liked astronomy and know very little but still is fun to watch the planets move around. Cant wait for the james webb to start sending pictures back to nasa.

Rain here for now but should be clearing up soon. Need to work on some limb loppers in the shop anyway. I see the light at the end of the pruning job but its still a ways out there. They ought to be sticking the 1st corn in the ground soon. I use to be part of that but haven't in a few years now. The idea is to be picking for the 4th of July. Sweet corn brings the people to the market.
Mike     

The night sky is something I wish I knew more about. It is fascinating. When you get away from the light pollution it is amazing how many stars you can see. One can certainly see how entertaining and important the night sky was to people of the past.

I grew up in the space age. I remember landing on the moon and how amazing that was. How many advancements in technology since then. I really look forward to us going back. Unmanned flight has taken us so many places. I know taking a human along complicates things exponentially. Cost, payload, fuel, oxygen, life support etc.  It really does make it more romantic. Especially if we actually do stuff there.

Look forward to seeing your orchard blossoming. And following it’s seasons.

We plant a pretty good sized patch of sweet corn. The kids use to sell it, but now we usually just give it away to friends and family. We freeze a lot. I can’t eat the stuff from store in a can. They totally ruin it.

Thanks again for the prayers

Bjrogg

[M2A]

Yeah, that canned stuff I never found very good. We put up a bunch of corn each year. Well worth it. We grow about 65 acres now, about half of what we did 20 years ago, but its almost all sold in the farm market store and not sent to town for wholesale anymore.

Going to be a few weeks for the apples to come into bloom. After about a month of sawing out the large branches with a pole saw I only have a few more trees to go until Ill call it good and wanted to finish up yesterday. Had it all planned out to be done early, nice easy day. However, the ground was just dry enough to plant corn and the guys I work with really wanted to have the weekend off. So on my way to the orchard I stopped by to see how well they were getting along and with the wind they were having a tough time of things, so I helped them out for a bit. While I was there I got a call that some roof vents in some greenhouses were not closing in our retail area so had to run down to the market override the computer controlled system down there before the roof got damaged and bounced back and forth the rest of the day. What was to be a short day turned out to be a long one, but 1st acre of corn is in for the year and I'll be in my shop today heat treating a a piece of locust for a special build for my younger boy.
Mike
IMG_4524 (2) by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
IMG_4526 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr                 

     

[bjrogg]

Thanks for sharing Mike.

Wow. 65 acres is a lot of sweet corn.  I probably have 1/65th of a acres and I get tired of picking it before its done.

Looks like you use plastic for weed control?

How wide of spacing between your rows? Do you leave it wide for picking? Do you pick by hand? Guessing you plant several planting dates to spread out harvest?

Really enjoy talking farming or agriculture anything with growing plants or animals.

Bjrogg

[Stoker]

Went to the son-in-law's farm last weekend for my grandson's 3rd birthday. They are ready to go, just waiting on the weather to warm up a bit. A little drier than they'd like but welcome to the Canadian prairies in the spring.
Thanks Leroy

[M2A]

I bet thats some pretty country up there Stoker. I've been lucky enough to get invited to South Dakota a few times to pheasant hunt, vast country up there, I suppose its somewhat similar further north.

Its photo degradable "mulch" and used to heat the ground, Like a greenhouse. On a sunny day it can bring soil temp up 30 degrees or so. Otherwise the ground would be too cold here for another month. Not sure this picture will show it well but it was 37 degrees and cloudy that day but condensation was building under the plastic because of the temperature difference.
IMG_4525 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Its a labor intensive process, There are 2 rows of corn under each row of mulch. We use plates in the seed boxes instead of a vacume system, so they will drop 3-4 seeds at a time then be thinned to 2 stalks per hole later. Definite higher yield than "bare" ground corn at 36" row spacing but  a lot of work and more risk. But for the next month this is how its planted. Mulch is spaced 6 foot on center if the guy in the seat can keep it that tight. Nothing flat or straight here lol.
Planting will continue until mid/end June with anything from 68 to 85 day seed depending on the conditions. The goal is to keep the market supplied from july 4th till labor day with no holes in the supply or without too much coming in at the same time. Sweet corn is what brings the customers in the door for us all summer.
Years ago they bought a Pix-all picker but that only lasted a few years and didn't have a big enough head for plantings like this. So its all picked by hand. That was my job 7 days a week for years. I don't do that type of work anymore for the most part. But if that's what needs done its what you do. I spend more of my time in the orchards than I do planting anything these days.
Mike
                     

[bjrogg]

Thanks for sharing Mike.

Really enjoy learning about others operations. I’m sure you keep yourself and your helpers busy.

I noticed it didn’t look like a lot of flat land there.

I hope you are blessed with a bountiful harvest with good weather.

Please keep sharing.

Stoker hope your grandson had a great birthday. And hope your son in law has a safe and prosperous year. How far north are they? What crops do they grow? Are they to far north for corn? Do they grow small grains and canola?

Bjrogg

[Stoker]

Bjrogg they are about 120 miles north of the US border and in line with the east side of Montana.
They mostly grow Duram wheat and lentils. All dryland.
Thanks leroy

[bjrogg]

I wish them the best Leroy. If I’m not mistaken they were pretty dry last year.

We are nothing like last year. Still cold and snowing here. Had about  3” yesterday morning but it’s mostly melted again. Last spring was warm and dry at this time. There were a lot of sugar beets planted by now. Nothing yet this year. Still okay yet though.

I wanted a plan B for the fertilizer knife setup. I think they will work ok with new colters but with partially worn ones I’m afraid they might be to deep and not close enough to the colter. I’m afraid that rocks and residue might make problems.

I decided to drill another set of holes to use with worn colters. It would have been easier to drill in drill press before they were welded on. Oh well I’ll get them. 10 rows done 8 more to go.

Have to drill through 3/4” thick steel . 18 holes 1/2” in diameter. That drilling through 13.5” of steel. Working in very uncomfortable position.

I like the fit though. And it could save me a lot of time during planting season.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We also got the water routed into the shop again. Sure will be nice to have water again.

We are all kinda independent thinkers around here. We spent part of a day arguing the best way to do it. When we were all done arguing we used a combination of best ways to do it and came up with a plan.

It went really good other than still some pretty deep frost on the north side of shop in the shade. Dig hard in places.

Our plan was to find water line underground on north side of shop. We didn’t want to cut cement in new part of shop floor because it has in floor heat. We wanted to come up into old shop floor.

I got thinking. When we built the original shop we put in a solar wall my dad designed. The south wall of shop had a solar wall. Just a double wall painted black inside with glass panels over it. When the temperature would get to 70 it would turn on a fan and blow the air through drainage tile surrounded by field stone under the floor. When we put on the addition we eliminated the solar wall. But the tile was still there.

All we had to do was dig under the shop enough to find a tile. Then we ran line right into shop without even have to cut a hole in the cement. Worked like a charm. Love it when a plan comes together

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Well we have been busy getting everything ready.

I tested every system on the planter now. Hopefully it all works when I actually take it to the field. I don’t think we will get any beets planted by my birthday. The 16th. It’s drying pretty good now though. Getting really close. If it’s still dry Monday I think we should be able to go. They are talking snow Monday though. Wouldn’t be the first time I planted in snow flurries. We always say to have really good beets they need to get snowed on after you plant them and again before you harvest them. Usually the winning combination for good sugar % and good tons.

We have all of ours and my sons clover cover crops seeded into our winter wheat crop. About 565 acres. Thinking it should be having some decent weather to germinate. Hopefully we get a good “catch” as the seed has more than doubled in price.

We have fertilizer truck ready. Tractor and field cultivator ready. Our micro nutrients ready for mixing.

We got a bunch more stuff fixed on the two combines but they still need more.

We continue to try to get as many of our inputs on farm as we can. Seems like that’s been par for the course the past few years with Covid and the supply chain issues from shutdowns. This year has actually been the worst of the three springs . I think we should be able to make what we have work. Wasn’t really plan A, but at least we physically have stuff for plan B.

It’s Good Friday and lots going on this weekend, I’ll try to keep updates. Happy Easter everyone

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Didn’t get any beets planted by my birthday, but did have a good one.

Our Harbor Beach Community Theatre has been struggling for years and the shutdowns didn’t help at all.

They are doing some out of the box thinking. They have been doing band concerts this year and this one was on my birthday. It was a Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band. They put on a good show and the theater was a really cool place for a concert.

Wife and I went with several friends. Had a good time.

Bjrogg

PS Happy Easter