Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Good news:      The corn planting is finished!  Ross got over the last of those acres today.

Bad news:        The soybean planting is halted in order to repair the air drill.  Yesterday evening during transport to another field, a hydraulic hose broke (without my notice).  Then upon lowering the wings of the drill, the row units dropped and six were bent outta shape along with several of the arms that hold the closing wheels.  Pat and I traveled many miles today to collect parts, and some will be overnighted to arrive in the morning.  John, Ross, and Brandon worked diligently along with Bill Berry to use the parts we could locate quickly…and were able to get the right half of the drill repaired.  The left half has some more parts that will arrive early tomorrow, and I hope to complete the repair and get back to planting.

With the repair task about half done, here lies the various parts that have been removed and that need to be put back on the 1890 air drill.

Whew!

On the bright side, about 35% of the soybeans are planted, and the weather report shows no rain in sight.  The ‘no rain report’ is also good and bad, for we would be pleased to have a nice 1/2 to 1 inch rain before long!

With lower winds predicted tomorrow, John will return to spraying ahead of the soybean planter.   It has now dried sufficiently in the recently-flooded White River bottom lands to allow the sprayer to do its thing.