Saturday, January 31, 2015

Wow! Another last-day-of-the-month already!  The calendar pages flip over rapidly, don’t they?

Some assorted stuff this week, both big and little:

1.  We made the final payment on the Cresy Evans farm on Friday.  It was the 10th and final payment.  Another happy milestone.  We all went out to lunch together to celebrate.

2.  My new pickup arrived at the dealer, Bill Dobson Ford at Washington, IN.  I ordered this F-150 last November.  Hopefully, they’ll get it cleaned up and the mud flaps installed and ready for me next week! There will be lots of gizmos and gadgets to learn.

Here is the new F-150 on the dealer’s lot in Washington, IN… fresh off the truck. It is coated with road salt! I’m sure it will be shiny when I pick it up… hopefully next week.

3.  My physical therapy (PT) has gotten more complicated and works me harder than it did in the early days right after the new shoulder was implanted.  Yes, it is more noticeably strenuous and makes me sore afterwards.  But I can sense some progress in flexibility and strength.  Even so, there is a long way to go!  This is going to take all the time available until planting time!  (8-9 weeks away).  My therapy regimen at home is 3 sessions/day, and I go to PT at the local hospital 2x/week.   It’s almost like having another full-time job!  My staples were removed on Thursday, and the doctor released me to drive.   I’ll drive here on the farm, but not in town just yet.  Maybe next week…

4.  We celebrated the decisive basketball victory of Purdue vs. Indiana on Wednesday.  Oh, how neat it would have been to be in Mackey Arena to see (and hear) it in person!

5.  John got the FPV (first-person view) installed on the Phantom drone this week.  Now we can monitor the camera’s view from a greater distance.  It is hoped that we can get some pictures of the tile installation at the Burke farm very soon.  If there are frozen days next week, we’ll try that task.  Frozen soil will allow us to drive out into the fields.

Here you see the Phantom 2 with the propellers and top cover removed. A fairly complex little machine. On the right is the FPV attached to the control box.

Here’s a picture taken from the Phantom 2 with the GoPro camera. It’s fun to watch this thing fly.

Next week:

I understand Ross is trying to get some corn sold for February delivery.  It’s good to keep that corn moving out.  We will also try to complete the sign-up at the FSA for the 2014-2018 farm program.  We have already updated our yields and bases, but the sign-up choice is more complicated.   Ross and I will consult once again about the strategy, but right now we are leaning toward ARC-CO.   Another task I hope to accomplish next week is the migration of all our Apex data to the MyJohnDeere cloud-based information management system.  I hope our DeKalb/Asgrow dealer gets some of our soybean seed into his inventory soon, so we can begin to write planting prescriptions for 2015.  I’ll file the Unified Carrier Registration for the highway trucks…and the license plates will have to get ordered for all our plated vehicles.  That’s an ambitious agenda for early February.

Have a good weekend.