Monday, February 6, 2017

We begin another week of work on the farm.  If the weather holds dry today, we will go down to the fields that were recently flooded by White River to burn the bean residue that has been floated into piles.   But the cloudy morning may not allow the dew to burn off for that task.  If not today, we will surely have an opportunity to perform this task before planting time.

There are loads of corn to be delivered this week.  That begins Wednesday.  Contracts to fill.  I hope we can be MT of corn before we plant the next crop, but the market will dictate that.  I hear it’s up today, just not enough to make additional sales yet.   There are conflicting signs in the grain markets with varying information about stocks and usage.   The strength of the dollar affects the corn price.  And the new administration’s tension with traditional customers of our ag products adds to the uncertainty.   We will see how it all plays out.

The new soybean air drill planter is now here, and we have installed our accessories to it.  There is a short video of the delivery on our YouTube site.  (Click on the YouTube icon at the upper right of this page)  We added a camera on the back to make travel on the highways safer.  When I’m traveling down US 50 and I need to make a left turn, it is essential to see what is coming up behind.  The air drill is too big to see back there, so the camera displays on the GS 2630 screen the view back there.  Also, we added a spare wheel and tire on the back of the drill.  It will help keep me going in case a flat occurs in the field.  After installing the two accessories, the drill was taken to the Huey farm location and placed in the quonset building there… it’s the only building we have that is big/tall enough to place the drill inside without uncoupling the air cart from the drill.  It will remain there until mid-March, when we will bring it back here to the main farm and begin the process of all the digital set-ups and calibrations.  We want to be completely prepared for the planting season that we hope begins in early April.

Here, John installs the spare wheel and tire to the back of the soybean air drill

Here is the camera that enhances safety, especially on the road

We unfolded the loading conveyor. The flip-over addition at the bottom is something new to us, and will be used to slide under a hopper-bottom trailer. If this works like we hope, we can use a larger-capacity semi trailer to deliver seed to this planter

Here you can see the 5-section air drill unfolded to its full working width.

We will also use a day next week to travel to Louisville for the National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS).  This exhibition has been occurring for many years, and seems to grow in scope with each passing year.  There are some particular exhibits we will be visiting.  We need to learn more about the Capstan nitrogen application controls, and about more integrated grain bin unloading systems.  Also, we visit the major farm equipment manufacturers (JD, CNH, AGCO) to see what they are introducing.   We never try to see everything… it’s just too much…so our visit is more targeted to the specific items of current interest to Carnahan & Sons.   Hopefully, we can bring some pictures from that visit to this website.

We are happy to report that our South Knox HS girls’ basketball team won the Sectional Championship on Saturday night.  They will move on to next Saturday’s Regional at Paoli, IN.  Their win was a pleasant surprise, as they defeated rival (and tourney strong favorite) North Knox on Friday night.  NK had defeated us during the season by over 20 points!  But the Spartans won that contest 46-42, and moved to the championship with Linton… winning that game by 25.  So, we are celebrating the happy news for our girls’ team.  For me though, I can have a heart for the NK team, especially the seniors who are in their last game.  I recall our sons’ final games as seniors, as they bowed out of the tourney.  It was especially difficult for this dad with Ben’s last game…defeated on a last-second 3-pointer in the first game of the sectional.  Our hopes and expectations were quite high for that state-ranked team, but they didn’t make it past the first game!  I think I took it harder than Ben did!  But, looking back on the experience of having our 3 sons play HSBB, I am so grateful that they were a part of something special, and they made lasting friendships through basketball.  Good memories.

Granddaughter Molly turns 2 tomorrow.  We went to her birthday party Saturday, held in the Youth Building at our church.  It was such a fun day and reinforces that the time is going by quickly.  Our granddaughters are growing and changing so fast.

Ross is progressing on his recovery from his ankle operation.  He will begin some weight-bearing and walking with crutches this week.  He is strictly obeying his doctor’s instructions.  The significant gains he is making are evidence of that.  His goal is to be back in the tractor for springtime planting work.  There is no reason to think he will not make his goal.

I’m working on refining the cash flow.  It looks better than 2016 and 2015.   Some of our cost-cutting steps are finally showing their upside effects.   Hopefully we can have a favorable crop production year with helpful, good yields that will also hold down our per-bushel costs.  We use average numbers in our projections.  We plan for the worst, and hope for the best.  And we trust our Maker in every circumstance.

Have a great week, everyone.