Friday, January 15, 2016

Hard to imagine that we’re halfway through January, huh?  Seems like it was just Christmas and New  Year’s.  The days go by pretty fast.  Pretty soon we’ll be flipping another page on the old calendar!

Brandon is on his 2nd trip today to ADM at Newburgh, Indiana with the final load of soybeans to fill the contract.  The rain today has helped wash the salt off  the truck and trailer, so I guess there’s an upside to being out today.  There will be several loads of corn to deliver to GPC in Washington, Indiana the last week of the month.

Grain hauling (and the related bin-sweeping) is the main outdoor activity of the winter.  We continue some occasional shop work, preparing vital machines for spring’s activity.  We try to practice preventive maintenance.  The JD 9330 tractor has been in for a tire rotation, the grain platforms have had their cutting parts renewed, and the grain cart is having its augers rebuilt.  We will soon inspect and repair the corn planter. One last thing to get ready will be the soybean drill.  We will do some minor repairs on it towards the end of March.  Once it comes home from the remote storage location at the Huey farm, it’ll stay here until planting time.  John says there is some work to be done on the nitrogen application bar, too.  That’s stored at the Huey farm too, so those two machines will likely come home at the same time.

On the white board in the shop, we post the winter repair tasks as we discover them. It is so very satisfying to erase them when they are completed!

It has become warmer yesterday and today… got up to 51ºF (11C) yesterday, and it’s about 45F today.   Not much snow remains to be seen.  The weekend is predicted to be much colder with temps in the low 20s or even teens for highs.  But 30s and 40s are supposed to return later next week.  The ups and downs of weather in SWIN keep us from getting bored!

Have a good weekend.