Wednesday, March 11, 2015

After a long morning of lingering, thick fog, the sun has broken through and the temperatures are warming.  It’s now 62ºF (17C).  The skies are a clear, cloudless and bright blue.  You can’t help but have your spirits rise when you get back to sunny days.

We still have some snow banks that have not yet melted.   The snow is gone from almost every field.  But the soil is quite soggy, as the thaw is now occurring.  Driving in and out our lane feels ‘squishy’, too.  The county government has placed a load limit on the local blacktop roads.  The potholes are abundant!

John has the JD 9360R tractor and the 2510H applicator bar in the shop, doing some maintenance on both.  There is a leaky hose to replace on the tractor, and some NH3 hoses that must be replaced on the applicator.

In the shop today to replace some hoses. This machine is used to apply the nitrogen fertilizer for the corn crop. We prefer to apply this important nutrient before planting time, but if that is not possible, there is another window of opportunity to apply the N in the growing corn before the it gets about knee-high.

I’ve been writing more prescriptions for the soybean planting operation–with only about 70 more to go.  Probably the last week of March, I’ll bring home the NT soybean air drill from its remote storage location.   We’ll make certain then that it’s completely ready for planting time.

Montgomery Welding came to install an alternate unload chute in our bin 10A, and we are using that today to run corn upstairs in load-out bin #6.

The pace will pick up again when Ross, Rhoda, and Brandon return from Florida.

More and more, it’s becoming Plant15 time!

… and we are now into March Madness… a basketball fan’s dream season!