The heat continues

Posted on August 10, 2026 by casifarm

Monday, August 10, 2026

Boy, oh, boy!  Another hot day.  This makes about 5 in a row around 90ºF, (93, right now).  Yes, we have not had any day with a temperature of 100ºF or more, but August has been a hot one so far.   And, of course, the humidity is high, too.  It is not surprising, for this is southern Indiana after all.

Preparations for fall harvest continue this week.  The guys have been working on the soybean headers and will have the combines in the shop soon to convert them back to soybean configuration from wheat.   Their work has been interrupted today with work on my pickup.   Saturday morning, I had a fully dead pickup, no life in the battery at all.  John helped me with it that afternoon, and his examination hinted that the alternator was not working properly.  He found the battery to be in good working order.  The guys pulled the alternator from the engine this morning (no small task).   John took the thing to Organ Battery in Vincennes and their testing found nothing convincingly wrong.  So, the battery has been charged, and the guys are re-installing the alternator.  I will have to drive it a bit more to see if it will let me down again.   It is made more complicated by the fact that this pickup is a hybrid.  There is no indication that there is any problem with the hybrid parts, but we will find out if there is a real problem in the 12V charging system.

A hot job today.

I have been out =for several days with the Gator to spray along field borders to clean up the appearance and reduce weed competition of the waterhemp and johnsongrass.  Most are looking really nice as of today.  After each day’s spraying runs, I like to wash up the Gator to remove any overspray chemical residue and to keep the JD green paint looking shiny.

The Gator cleans up nicely

Brandon D has been working on the headers to clean them up after wheat harvest and to do some repairs on the cutting parts in preparation for soybean harvest.

Cleaning the JD RD40F header.

The sunsets have been spectacular this month.  Here is one from last Sunday evening.

Sunday Sunset

The fall prep work for getting combines, headers, and trucks ready will continue.   Next week, John will be applying the 2nd (and final) pass of herbicide on the double-crop soybeans.  The DCB this summer are not particularly beautiful… (well, some are, but some are not) many of fields had areas where the soil was wetter at planting, and that resulted in some patches where the “stand” is thin to bare.   Still, we are hopeful for a decent DCB crop.   A nice inch of rain would be very welcome to help finish off the corn, soybeans, and DCB.   Seems fickle… after all the days and days of too much rain, that now a rain would be helpful!

I need to mow the yard tomorrow.   It will have to wait until afternoon to allow the heavy dew to burn away, and it is supposed to be 90+ degrees!   Glad I can do it in a couple hours!

I heard from our very first French ag student today.  Damien came in October 1996 and spent 3 wonderful weeks with us.   That was such a good experience, that we continued to host additional etudients for almost a decade after that, until the French Ag college at La Saussaye halted the program.   Damien, now 49 years old, lives in Normandy, and he is a successful farmer there; his main crop is le lin (flax).   Today is his younger daughter’s 15th birthday.   The pictures he sent are a treasure.  They recently went to Disneyland Paris, and he says he felt like an American!

Camille, Damien, Manon, and Virginie

Have a wonderful week.

 

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August is here

Posted on August 4, 2026 by casifarm

Tuesday, August 4, 2026

We are doing typical August stuff.

We are still sending wheat to market at Evansville and Newburgh.  So, when Larry is available, he is here running the “Pete” to the ADM elevators down on the Ohio River.  Brandon K has the JD 9R540 tractor washed up from the planting season.  He said the manure residue stuck on the inside of the duals was rather nasty to clean off.  This residue was from where neighbors injected their hog barn pit slurry into a couple of our nearby fields.  But it is #Andyclean today.

Big news is that Brandon D and his wife have welcomed a new son into their family!   All are doing well.

Brandon K is up at the State Fair today, helping prepare for a horse show there.

John is preparing to send his girls off to South Knox beginning Thursday morning.  He will have an 8th grader, 6th grader and 1st grader there!  A group from church went Monday evening to pray at/over/for the SK schools and all the people connected to that great place.

I have (sort of) ‘caught up’ with the roadside mowing.  I’m trying to reduce what I do out there a little bit this year to save on some fuel, but I don’t enjoy when they look a bit ‘wooly’ or ‘ragged’.   I have also been out in the Gator, spraying along ditches and roadsides to clean up any weedy spots.  It’s good to have the Gator back home, after it spent a week or so at Sloan’s in Vincennes, getting some extensive and needed repairs.

We equip the Gator with a hand sprayer and I move along, spraying out the window. It really helps to have the Gator’s A/C on this job!

Brandon K’s goal is to have all the bins cleaned out and wheat delivered by the 15th.  Then he will turn attention to getting the combines and trucks prepared for fall harvest.

We look for foggy mornings now; we had some patches in valleys this morning.  When we have a morning really socked in with fog, we count it towards an old saying here in SWIN.  “The number of fogs in August equals the number of snows in January”.   We will see if it holds true in 2027… it generally does!

We also want to comment about the Knox County Fair, held last week.  It was one of the finest fairs we have had in decades.  The grounds were packed with people every day and night.  The 4-H shows were heavily attended.  Some want to attribute the big attendance to somewhat cooler temperatures, but it is also a tribute to the Fair Board.  The number of improvements to the grounds were remarkable.   There was a brand-new cattle barn.  Restrooms were clean with A/C in most.  The grounds were groomed neatly.  The carnival was noticeably much higher quality.   All in all, the best county fair we’ve had in years.  And to top it off, it is the oldest county fair in Indiana.

As I write, I hear Brandon D on the Z970R mower, making the place look great.

Have a great week.

 

 

 

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Rainy Saturday morning.

Posted on July 25, 2026 by casifarm

Saturday, July 25, 2026

It’s raining this morning, not a downpour, but steady.  This will alter my plan for the day.  I thought I’d do a little roadside mowing this morning and then mow my yard this afternoon.   That’s not gonna happen, even if the rain stops at midday as predicted.  So, I have other tasks I can undertake.

When the internet provider came to repair and restore our internet service last Monday, he replaced the receiver dish and the router.  This resulted in my need to re-establish the connection to many wireless devices.  The last one to do is for the Generac generator.   That connection will be a bit more complicated, for it appears I’ll have to remove the outer walls of the case that contains the system, in order to access the proper internal devices.   There are sufficiently detailed instructions from Generac, so I hope to get that done sometime today, after the rain stops.

I assisted John yesterday morning in repairing the hitch on the R15 rotary cutter.  It has a type of spring-loaded cushioning on the front hitch, with a little chain that limits its travel.  That chain broke and I could not use the cutter until it was repaired.  The replacement chain arrived yesterday morning and together we made the ‘fix’.   It wasn’t hard.   At least not for John!

After the repair, I spent the remainder of the day running the cutter on roadsides.  Towards the end of the day, I started the most difficult parts… along US 50 near the Wheatland stoplight.  Some of that gets pretty steep and makes me a bit nervous.  But I got about 1/4th of that section done before the end of the workday.

Mowing along US 50, a ‘before’ shot.

… and ‘after’.

Along IN 550, near Wheatland, with our church there on the left of the picture.   Wheatland Christian Church.

During my mowing, I received a FaceTime call from France.  It was one of our French sons, who lives in the Beauce region, between Chartres and Orleans.  Victor is one of 31 French agricultural students who we met through a program sponsored by Indiana Ag Leadership and the agricultural college near Chartres at La Saussaye.  Beginning in 1996, and over a period of subsequent years, we hosted in our home 14 different young La Saussaye students, most of whom are now farmers.   The rest of the 31 were hosted by neighbors here, but we had them all here at the farm most of their days in SWIN.   The French ag students’ typical visits were 3 weeks in October.

I visited with Victor for about a half-hour and learned about his challenges there.  Drought… secheresse, in French.  Victor was in his tractor, seeding some sorghum (or was it sudangrass?  I don’t quite remember) to become feed for his cattle.  He says his irrigated fields are okay, but those without are a disaster.  His daily work includes care for his cattle, and nowadays irrigation.  As we compared notes about our farms, it was another reminder that even though he is thousands of miles away in France, as farmers we are more alike than different.

Victor and his wife Raphaelle have 4 children, and it was great to catch up on the news of his family.  This call was a delightful highlight of my day.  I marvel at the technology.  One farmer in Indiana, speaking with another in France, and we could see each other as we spoke!  It makes me feel like I’m George Jetson!

Victor, Raphaelle and their 4 children

The joys of a big family

So far, we’ve received .39″ (10mm) of rain.  Looks like a little bit more is coming.

Have a good weekend.

 

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Corn planter takes a turn

Posted on July 23, 2026 by casifarm

Thursday, July 23, 2026

This afternoon, Brandon K is washing the corn planter.  It has sat in the shed for several weeks, waiting for us to have an opportunity to get it cleaned up and stored away.   It won’t be nearly as extensive a task to get this planter clean as compared to the soybean drill.   He should have it ready to store away by this evening.  Soon, it will be #Andyclean!

Brandon K is using the pressure washer to make this machine shine.

All the DCB are up and growing.  Most look okay, but some have a pretty thin stand.   I think it’s the best we can do for 2026… and somehow it will be okay.

DCB at the Huey farm this afternoon. Do I wish the stand was thicker? Yes. Am I going to plant more in there? No, not at this late date.

Larry and Brandon D are on the road to Newburgh, delivering wheat to ADM down there.  We should wrap up the July deliveries early next week, and then start on the August contracts.

 

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Soybean planter stored away

Posted on July 21, 2026 by casifarm

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

The cleaning of the soybean drill and cart was completed this morning! Brandon finished that off early today.  Then, we had to spend quite some time decoupling the two parts of the machine.  We have no building in which we can store this cart+drill with it hooked together, so, each summer we must unhook the JD 1910 cart from the JD N550 no-till drill in order to put it all under roof.  It involves lots of wires, video cables, hoses, and then it takes big muscles to get the hitch pins out.  But with John’s help, Brandon and I got it taken apart, and then put inside the shed.

Hallelujah!

Here, we are with the two parts of the soybean planting system uncoupled.

Best of all, the 9R540 tractor is now back under roof, out of the sunshine. The sun will fade the beautiful green paint.

In early spring, I cannot wait get it hooked up for the season, and in summer, I can’t wait to get it put back in storage.  I guess I’m fickle, huh?   But this planting season with the largest-ever number of replant acres, and then the extra-long time of getting the wheat cut and DCB planted, made me feel even stronger that it is good to have that machine stored!

Mission accomplished!

 

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Big week ahead

Posted on July 20, 2026 by casifarm

Monday morning, July 20, 2026

Yes, there is a lot to do this week.  There are 3 locations of DCB that need herbicide applied… but that won’t be soon because the fields are muddy–we had 3 consecutive days of rain Thurs-Sat, receiving over 2″ in some places.  There are machines to wash, notably the combines and headers and the soybean drill.  There is wheat to deliver to Newburgh and Evansville.  There are roadsides to be mowed.   All of these tasks will not be finished this week, but we will make a good effort to make progress on each.

Brandon D on his way out with a load of wheat, headed to Newburgh.

Brandon K is washing away the caked-on and dried mud from the row units on the n550 no-till drill.  A big job this year.

School starts here on August 6.  So, for the families with school kids, the summer is nearly over!  Boy, oh boy… did that go fast.

Temps this week will be about 90ºF each day.   It could be worse… like 1936; if you listen to the record temperature for the past few weeks, it has almost always been in 1936.  My parents used to talk about that summer as being a scorcher.  And, of course, there was no air conditioning in those days.   Many people slept outside.   I don’t think we should act surprised that it is hot and sticky in July, this is southern Indiana.  It could be 1936 all over again.  We haven’t hit 100ºF for a temperature…yet.  Yes, the ‘feels like’ temp, with the humidity factored in, has hit numbers near 110… Therefore, we are thankful for our air conditioned homes and cars and farm equipment!

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Oh my… just a little bit more…

Posted on July 17, 2026 by casifarm

Friday, July 17, 2026

Yesterday afternoon, I went back to the Shake farm to replant some acres of double-crop soybeans (DCB).   The ‘stand’ had been reduced by wet soils in areas when I was planting the original time.  I had some seed left in the cart, so I thought, “Why not use them up in those spots at Shake?”

That problem has been a bit pervasive across most of the DCB acres this summer.  The extended rainy periods in June and now July delayed our wheat harvesting, and subsequently the planting of DCB.  Because of the pressure put on us by virtue of the calendar, I planted many of the DCB acres in less-than-ideal conditions.  The stand is not as uniform as we normally see and certainly not what we prefer.  However, at this date on the calendar, I am not inclined to do any more replanting… just take what we have.  It’ll be hard to look at the spotty fields the rest of the summer, but it is what it is!

Replanting DCB at Shake on July 16…. what?

Both Brandons have been taking turns running the sprayer for a couple weeks.  They have applied fungicide to the soybean crop, and placed a herbicide on most of the DCB acres.   The DCB fields that remain to be sprayed are too muddy… we had pop-up storms yesterday… some places got zero rain, others .1″ and 1/8 of a mile away .7″!   So spotty.  But even with the challenges, they have had a good couple weeks running the sprayer.  It’ll soon be ‘caught up’ next week.

Brandon D has also been doing some mowing of roadsides and riparian strips along ditches and levees.  It really looks good when he gets finished.  He’s out this morning mowing at the Burke farm, making that levee and roadsides look “cared for”.

Next week, we will have to turn more attention to delivering wheat to market.   Larry has been occupied with going to ADM at Newburgh, Indiana.  He typically makes 2 trips a day, while we have been occupied with other work.   Some loads will have to be delivered to ADM First Avenue in Evansville.  It’s harder to get in and out of there, but it pays a little better.

The other task that needs next week’s attention is the clean-up of the machines.   The grain cart has already been washed and put away, but the combines and headers have yet to be blown and washed.  The big challenge will be the soybean drill.  The N550 drill has 60 row units, and they are caked with dried-out mud.  It will take some extra time to get those clean!  I worked on it yesterday for about an hour and I got 5 of the 20 wheels washed and 3 of the 60 row units!   I think the pressure washer will be helpful on that job!

Brandon D makes the Demco 1322 cart shine like new! I would even say it is #Andyclean!

Brandon K has been out this morning checking the corn fields.  We have heard reports of pollination issues in the area.  So far, what he has checked has been okay.  There is a little tip-back but not cobs with few kernels like we have seen.  Another reason to be grateful.

A sample ear from the Waldo farm today, 7-17-27. Not too shabby!

Have a wonderful weekend.

 

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DCB — done!

Posted on July 9, 2026 by casifarm

Thursday, July 9, 2026

Yesterday in the late afternoon, I was able to finish off the planting of double-crop soybeans.   PTL!  That process began with two small fields I planted on June 17 but took almost a month to wrap up.  The delay was caused by frequent rainy periods that kept wheat harvest incomplete… until July 1.   I was not able to get back into planting of DCB until July 2nd and 3rd.   There was another rain delay until Monday the 6th, and with 3 big days’ planting, the DCB were finished off yesterday the 8th.  Now, the prayer goes from “please let me get the planting done” to “please get those little beans growing”!

Planting on Friday, July 3 at the Leser farm

Planting DCB at the Holscher farm, Monday, July 6

On the way home yesterday from the last field, I was caught in a little rain…

The air cart and drill remain hooked to the JD 9R540, just in case it will be needed for any more replanting.   (We hope not!)  It will be a bigger task to clean it all up before being stored.  The last 2 fields were ones that had a neighbor knife in a slurry of liquid hog manure…clearing their big pit.  There were spots in those fields that were not quite ‘settled’ and dried down from that application.   But I felt compelled to press on, for 95%+ of the field area planted well.

This week, the two Brandons have taken charge of the needed spraying.  The soybeans needed a 2nd application of glyphosate (Roundup) plus a fungicide treatment.  They have been quite diligent in this work, scouting each field, and performing the needed spray treatments.   Now that the planting is ‘caught up’, I’ll turn my attention to hand spraying field borders and roadsides and ditches from the seat of the Gator.   Next week, I’ll probably return to running the little JD 6145R tractor with the R15 rotary cutter (bush hog).  I like to make the roadsides, the riparian strips, and waterways look nice all summer.

So, today, we feel a bit of release from the pressure of the late planting season that extended far beyond the month of June.  Once the guys get the spraying ‘caught up’, their days can go back to a more regular routine, too.

Larry has been here most days delivering wheat to ADM at Newburgh, Indiana.  We had sold 70 truckloads to be delivered in June-July.    He can easily make 2-a-day.   It’s good to have him taking care of that while other tasks are being done.

Tomorrow, I’ll meet with a crop insurance adjuster to process our claim for replanting corn and soybeans.  The rainy weather and river flooding has created a need this season for an unusually large number of replant acres, especially in soybeans.  That will be another task to tick off the list tomorrow.

I’ll include now a picture from the 4th of July.  It was the most beautiful day you could imagine.

 

 

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Wheat is done!

Posted on July 1, 2026 by casifarm

Wednesday evening, July 1, 2026

PTL!  The wheat crop is all done.   We had not touched the combines since last Thursday night.  It was great to get going again.   Big rains kept us out of the fields.

Yes, there are still many loads to deliver on summer contracts, but the extended wheat harvest is finally behind us.   We are grateful for this crop, even if it was a bit smaller than we had hoped.  We still had some (at least I think so) really good yielding wheat for our yield contest entries (139.6 bpa).   The extreme wet weather held back any field that had a flat area, or even the bottoms of WASCoBs.   Still, the average for the crop came out at 106, which was not too bad for 2026 and its wet, wet weather.  That was less than we thought it might be during the winter, but spring weather was not kind to this crop.

Now, comes the planting of double-crop soybeans (DCB).  The soil is too wet today to plant any DCB in any wheat field, but I’m hoping this hot weather will dry it enough for me to get started on that by Friday or Saturday.

It was a good day’s running today.  The older S780 had to have its batteries replaced today, just to get started.  But the day’s work went pretty well, and it was fun to see the crop roll into the header.  Even though this wheat crop took much longer to bring in, I’ll still miss it for a few days… I really enjoy cutting wheat, especially nowadays when we can get 100+ yields.

Getting started late this morning.

Midday

Unloading on this hilly field

Starting around the next-to-last field…

Nutrien will be closed on Friday and Saturday, so I’ll send the Volvo tomorrow to get a load of seed in the hopper trailer.  That way, if by some wonderful chance I can plant on Friday and/or Saturday, I won’t run out of seed, and be intruding on Greg’s holiday just to get more seed.

I hope that I’ll be able to plant DCB Friday and Saturday.  We will see.  The soil surface needs to be dry, and it’s not close to that yet.

Have a wonderful 4th holiday.  It has been a blessing to see the European visitors who are here for the World Cup soccer tournament.  It is a vivid reminder that the good ol’ USA has a lot of good things going for it.  And I especially appreciate the comments that Americans are friendly and helpful.  These images and videos provide a special boost during the 250th Anniversary celebration.

 

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Rain, again.

Posted on June 25, 2026 by casifarm

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Doggone it.  Rain again this morning.

.4″ (10mm) so far.

The view today.

The forecast last night showed us having a mostly-clear day today.  If that had happened, we probably would have finished with wheat harvest.   We are down to the last farm, and there is only about 112 acres left there to cut.  But that will have to wait for another day.  Seems like two days a week are all we get to cut wheat.

We had a good day cutting yesterday.  We got done at the Waldo and Shake farms.  Yields were surprisingly a bit better at Waldo, and surprisingly a bit worse at Shake.  From there, we moved to the Harry farm, and it yielded okay so far.   I hope that today and tomorrow’s rain does not keep us very long from being done with #wheatharvest26.  It turns out that this one has been a marathon, not a sprint.

Shadows lengthen as we harvest in the evenings and into the night.

Wednesday’s sunset was quite nice

Since I’ve only planted two small fields of double-crop soybeans, almost all the DCB remain to be planted when the fields dry down enough to do so.  The soil surface needs to be dry for the beans to plant ideally.  The weather forecast next week is more favorable.

Good news! The earliest-planted DCB are emerging!

Apparently, we have missed the worst of the flooding on White River, the crest at both Edwardsport and Petersburg were slightly below the prediction… and that’s a good thing!  I should not have to replant any acres in those fields due to another flood event!   Look on the bright side, huh?

Another task looming on the horizon is running the sprayer in the earliest-planted soybeans.  They will need another pass of herbicide, and if the timing is right, a tank-mix with fungicide included.  We will also be observing the corn crop tasseling progress, and that will require the airplane to fly on a fungicide treatment at the exact appropriate time.  Our consultant Greg will be advising us on the timing of all those treatments.

Tassels are emerging!

The guys are sending wheat to market in Newburgh on this rainy day.  Larry and Brandon D are on their way.  At least we can do that!

 

 

 

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