March 2010

March came.
That means topdressing wheat. Which means getting the sprayer ready to go.

Then loading up with fertilizer and herbicide.

Nice growth--but not too much. Lots of moisture--this is exactly what the wheat should look like this time of year. It sure seemed like it was going to be a good year.


Even my field 'o dust came out of the winter looking pretty good:

My continuous wheat at the Gray Havens didn't look quite so good. If you don't get enough moisture after wheat harvest to sprout the volunteer wheat, you can't kill the volunteer wheat. Which means it all comes up with the sowed wheat. Which means WAY too many plants in the field. Especially because last years wheat was hailed on pre-harvest. The nice line of overgrowth on the left side is what happens when you make the first round around the field at harvest with the grain tank clean out door open.



Normally I would go ahead and top dress the irrigated wheat at the same time as the dryland. But the Irrigated was still a little behind.



So I had more time to hang out with Anna.
Trying to keep the cats away from Linda's porch.
It is amazing that any cats would even think of messing with Linda's porch.

And time to take Anna to preschool in the mornings. Here is an Anna-eye view of her trip to town:






Later in the month we got started with her Bendaroos which I had got for Anna in Witchita.
Here is our horse in progress, I'm not sure if we ever took a picture of the finished product. Imagine a bright blue horse with pink accents.


And then it was finally time to top dress the irrigated wheat.
I could just barely see the rows of wheat.


We took Anna to an Easter deal at the Y.

She had a good time.


And I finally got around to replacing this O-ring on the Puma.

Then it was finally warm enough kill some volunteer wheat.
Which meant it was time to set up the spray trailer.
We had a real pretty crop of volunteer wheat.
The 2009 hail on the Gray Havens had a double effect on the volunteer situation. First there is the wheat that ended up on the ground before we got to it. Then there is the fact that we couldn't run the combine fast enough to keep it full in the downed wheat. Which leads to more wheat thrown over the back of the machine.

There was quite a bit less on the irrigated wheat stubble, but still enough that it was worth spraying.

With that done I could once again drive Anna to school.

March went.