Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
This day brings back some thoughts of our Irish heritage. Legend has it that our Carnahan ancestors were converted to Christianity in Ireland by St. Patrick himself! . William Carnaghan (the spelling changed as his name was ‘American-ized’… the silent ‘g’ was dropped), was born in County Donegal in Ireland in 1804. He arrived in America at a time unknown to us, but his son John was born in Daviess County, Indiana in 1827. Succeeding generations have been engaged in farming in various ways here in Knox County. Our present-day John Carnahan is the 7th generation of farming Carnahans in this area. His daughters Ella and Molly represent the 8th generation in America. So, we have a fairly long family history of SW Indiana farmers! John has done extensive research into the Carnahan history. John tells us that the little village of Carnaghan still exists on Inch Island, County Donegal, in the far north of Ireland. Check it out on Google Earth!
Today is a bit cooler than yesterday’s spectacular 75ºF (24C), and it is quite windy. But the bright sunshine is invigorating! The wind will help dry out the soil, and firm it up for some fieldwork in a few days. The thawing soil has been very soft. (Including local county roads) Last Friday’s 2.3″ rain initiated the process of stabilizing the thawed soils. As the soil dries out, we call it “settling up”, meaning that it is getting close to being able to support the traffic of farm equipment. For example, last week, I tried to walk across the yard at home. My feet were sinking in about an inch, and you could hear the “squish, squish”. Today, I can walk across the yard, and my feet stay mostly dry and don’t leave an imprint.
John and Brandon are still engaged in preparations for planting. Brandon has filled another corn contract with delivery to ADM in Newburgh, IN. John has had many small projects today, servicing the lawn mowers, and getting the old orange ten-wheeler ready to haul seed soybeans.
New tarp straps to replace the old brittle ones? Check.
Clean pickup? Check.
Ammonia applicator bar ready? Check.
Sprayer ready? Check.
Planter ready? Check.
They have also been preparing the wagon that holds and transports 3 big boxes of corn seed. From that wagon, an auger conveying system loads the corn planter. The water trailer that supplies the sprayer was serviced today, too. Check.
Anthony from Hutson, Inc. was here all morning yesterday to assist me with solving the problem I’m having with JD Apex. We were not able to fix it yesterday, but today he has emailed me a solution that will solve the problem in 5 easy steps. Whew, what a relief! Now, I’ll be able to transfer the Plant15 set-up information to the tractors and sprayer. I have almost all the planting prescriptions written… again!
These may be baby steps, but we are making progress.
