In Which lobiwan Gets in Over His Head. (June 2012 1 of 2.)

Scales, scales, and an attack of the un-dead.

So I had to buy a new flex header.

And as long as a guy is signing papers...

Then Katie helped me sample some wheat. This is June first. Which is crazy early to even be thinking about harvest.

The wheat said no.

And it was back to town.

The next day the scale came.

And the next day we headed to Colorado.

And then I came back to cut wheat. We started on the 7th. A lot of other folks had started on the 4th.

There was more drumming.

And more harvesting.

And some better late than never corn spraying.

And watering.

And more harvesting.

We finished up the last dab of dryland on the 14th. In 2011 we STARTED dryland on the 22nd. It was predictably poor--teens all around. At least the 2188 was running great for a change.

Then it was time to think about milo planting.

And getting the scale ready to go.

And then it rained a bit.

So-what to say. I sprayed the fallow stuff in May in less than ideal conditions with probably the wrong chemicals and with definitely not enough water. Half dead weeds are A. not dead, and B. very very hard to kill. Herbicides only work if weeds are actively growing. Otherwise they simply never metabolize enough of the chemical for it to work. And the cycle continues to spiral out of control. These pictures still make me feel sick.

Then it rained a lot.

I made a judgement call. And sprayed in the mud.

It got windy enough for long enough to try out the new backseat arrangements.

The Gray Havens was back to it's preferred state of wall to wall pigweeds. 

Emergency/futile/rescue spraying of un-dead weeds out of the way, we switched to planting milo.

The milo got off to a quick start.

And things went pretty quick with Spencer here to help.

Until the air conditioner fan quit. And I fixed it all by myself.

Which resulted in more problems.

There was more drumming.

And some new life.