Monday, January 31, 2022
Yes, it’s the last day of January! This month has flown by! The sky is a brilliant blue, and the temperature has warmed to 44ºF (7C). It is a busy day here at Carnahan & Sons. The biggest activity is that the folks from Nutrien are applying nitrogen to our wheat crop. This is the first shot of N for the 2022 wheat crop. Nutrien brought 3 big-capacity sprayers on board today, and they should be able to get our entire 500+ acres covered today. The nurse tank trucks are parked nearby, and that speeds up the process. Getting this done today is important as we view the week’s weather forecast. Rain is coming tomorrow evening, with rain/snow/ice coming Wednesday and Thursday! The snowfall is predicted to be several inches! I don’t mind the snow, but the ice in the forecast is a concern. We are prepared for a heavy snow with our JD 6130R tractor sporting the snow blower today.
The liquid nitrate is streamed on the wheat, not sprayed.
The wheat looks pretty good so far, and this will give it a significant boost.
Snow blower sits in the shop, awaiting action later this week. I even washed the tractor.
Our sprayer came back home today. It was off at the dealer for several weeks to add a boom recirculation package. That will make the morning start-up and the end-of-day wrap-up faster, with less waste. The installation task turned into a bigger job than expected, with some calls made to Deere to get the unit functioning as expected. Some of the wiring cables had to be re-engineered. Every component of the spray boom had to be removed and reinstalled along with the new technology package. After many trial runs, it finally performed well in the dealer’s tests. We think it will be a helpful addition. Technology is wonderful when it works!
R40444 sprayer come home today!
Brandon is delivering some corn to market at Newburgh, Indiana. The markets there are on the Ohio River, and those are currently stronger than local markets. So, down to the Ohio we go! We are officially MT (empty) of soybeans, so it is 2021 corn only to be delivered from now on.
Progress is being made at the new Leser farm location. We met this morning with a adjoining landowner who asked if we could completely remove the tree line in the fencerow between our properties. Together we made a plan to make that happen. Hundred and hundreds of posts have been pulled out and are stacked. Many of them have been sold. (More are available, just call Brandon to see what we have left.) Our land clearing contractor, Mr. Worland, has built some brush piles, and he started them to burn this morning. The debris that will not burn (stumps and root balls) will be buried on site. Trees that were of appropriate size and quality were harvested by a logger. The target is to get the land cleared by late March — ready to plant spring crops on it. The plan is to have a crop of soybeans growing at this farm!
This brush pile is burning today.
Last week, there was a big row of trees along this gravel road. I should have taken a ‘before’ shot to reveal how overgrown and neglected it looked.
180 degree view from the above picture–along the same gravel road– the big trees were removed here also, and this morning I planted fescue on this bank to help protect it from erosion. A ‘cleaner’ look, and no shade to limit adjacent crops.
We are breathing a sigh of relief after the Ohio State at Purdue game yesterday. After squandering a 20-point lead, the Boilermakers were able to squeak away with a win with a 3-point basket at the buzzer! As Bill Raftery said at the moment, “Onions!” We have been on the wrong end of such a game earlier this year, and we were the ones to experience the ‘onions’. This time, we were fortunate to come away with the win.
If you’re in the Midwest, you should probably prepare for some snow days ahead! Let’s hope this winter storm brings only snow, not the ice that some are predicting. Have a great week.
