Thursday, July 18, 2024

I’ve been mowing roadsides for a few days.  I prefer to start in the morning after the dew dries off; it makes the ‘after’ view less clumpy… more smooth.  As of this evening, I think I’ve touched every roadside area once or twice (and one place three times!). My next goal is to mow the riparian strips along the ditches at Waldo, Dunn, Huey, and Watjen.  There are some waterways at Huey that also need trimmed.  My goal is to mow the roadsides one more time just ahead of fall harvest.  I really like the little tractor and bush hog (JD calls it a rotary cutter).   The IVT transmission is ideal for this task, and the 145HP is plenty of power.

This JD 6145R tractor is ideal for the mowing task. It pulls a JD R15 rotary cutter, more commonly known as a bush hog. Bush Hog is a brand name of a rotary cutter, and most folks use the name to refer to any rotary cutter. Kinda like Kleenex is what most people call tissues.

Mowing the roadside at the Crook Farm.

This was the view of the mowing on the south edge of Wheatland this morning. You can see our church, Wheatland Christian, in the background.

Brandon and Bill have been delivering corn to ADM in Newburgh, Indiana.  When August arrives, they will deliver wheat to ADM in Evansville to fill the remaining contract.  The Evansville location is less convenient than Newburgh to access… more traffic and stoplights, but that’s where the wheat bid is best.  The wheat that is still left over in the bin will also be sold.  We need to empty the bins.  It is Brandon’s goal to have all the bins MT (empty) by the end of August.

The weather was very pleasant today.  The temperature and the humidity are lower.  It got up to only 80ºF (27C).   I took the second part of the afternoon to mow my yard at home.  It was very comfortable to be out there today… quite unlike a week ago!

Our little JD 545R zero-turn mower does a good job, and it only takes 2 hours to mow our yard.

I think we will be able to return the sprayer to work tomorrow.  The double-crop soybean (DCB) fields have probably firmed up from the recent 1.3″ (33mm) rain.  Also, it got a bit too windy today for spraying anyway, but it’s looking urgent to get that waterhemp and johnsongrass stopped!  Our plan is to get the spraying ‘caught up’ tomorrow.  With a big day, that will be possible.

I hope all goes well for you as you anticipate a lovely weekend.