Friday, May 30, 2014

Another week has come and gone, and nearly so another month!  This week has been quite productive, for it saw the completion of soybean planting.  We were also able to complete the sidedress of nitrogen on the corn at the Freddie farm.  We did a little replanting (4.3 acres to be exact) of some soybeans that drowned in recent rain events.  Ross replanted a small place at the Pond that the planter had skipped, and a small area at Huey Flat R that had succumbed to too much rain water.  Maybe 2 or 3 acres in all.   This week, the Shepards finished the conservation construction at the Watjen farm, and have made good progress on the adjoining Lett farm.  Officially, there is only one field of corn left to plant!  John has all the spraying ‘caught up’.  The growing corn and soybeans look very good in each field.  Many of the corn fields are ‘laid by’.  And just this week, you can notice the wheat beginning to change from green to gold.

Check out a new YouTube video of corn planting.

We await the arrival of our French student, Nicolas Haigron, who will be with us through the month of June.  He will experience wheat harvest with us, the planting of double-crop soybeans, some spraying, and some trucking.   We will also take in some of the sights of beautiful Indiana, and possibly catch a baseball game.  We hope his time in Indiana is a good one for him, because we have had the opportunity to host many young French farmers in the past.  Nicolas will be number 32.  We have been enriched by our relationships with these folks, many of whom are now mid-career on their farms and their families are growing.  We have many French grandchildren these days!

The sprayer and 9330 tractor have been washed, and we are eager to do so with the MX290 and corn planter.  This will be our last clean-up on this particular planter, for we are trading it for a new model for ’15.

Next week should see the combines come out of storage.  We will install the 2-way radios and other little custom touches.  We will make certain all the pre-harvest calibrations are set up.  We will get them fueled and ready.

Here’s wishing you all a good weekend.