Monday, March 23, 2015

It’s a mostly sunny day, and the temperature has come up to about 60ºF (16C).

John prepares to replace the 4 broken closing-wheel springs we discovered in our inspection. Today, it’ll be ready for planting season.

The soybean planter, a JD 1910 air cart with an 1890 NT air drill, is in front of the shop to replace some springs on the closing wheels.  It will also receive its lubrication.  Then, we’ll park it here and wait for the first day of planting!

I went to the Evans farm today with the backhoe to work on a tile riser that needed to be dug out and re-positioned into a vertical stance.  The backhoe did the bulk of the work, and then a shovel in my hand completed the task.  After, I used the backhoe front bucket to refill the cavity around the riser.   Looked pretty smooth when done.

The blue DMI NH3 toolbar is prepped and ready… and hooked up to the MX290 Magnum tractor.

The guys are working on the field cultivator now.

The field cultivator takes its turn in front of the shop. Tire pressures will be corrected, and lubrication will occur. The sweeps will be inspected, and the too-worn ones will be replaced.

We’ll use this implement ASAP to smooth some of the erosion ruts around various fields, and to smooth the areas we had disturbed during last fall’s conservation construction work.  I had hoped there would be a day during the winter when it would be dry enough to do this smoothing job, but that kind of day did not happen.  The rolling basket on the back end of the field cultivator makes for a really smooth soil surface.

Have a good week.