Dry Corn Harvest 2011.

So with the wheat in the ground it was time to get the corn out of the field.  Before we could do that, however, we had to move whatever leftover seed wheat we had in our "big" aerated bins. I had been dreading this since it involves a lot of cleaning out equipment and moving of augers.

And then (my nephew) Spencer showed up on his fall break!


While sales had been better than I had expected with the terrible combination of $8 August grain-wheat prices (translation: pretty pricey seed wheat) and our driest year to date on record, we still had quite a bit of seed wheat in the bins.

It went WAY faster with Spencers help.

While it is time consuming to have to clean out augers and hoppers and labor consuming to have to move the equipment around every time we change varieties, we like running the augers over a nice single pit elevator system because we feel it reduces the possibilities for cross contamination of seed.  It is a lot harder to mistakenly dump a truckload of Variety A into a bin containing variety B when you are actually unloading in a different physical location for each bin and when (a lot!) more than a few levers or push-buttons separate the two bins' load points.

The girls had a pretty good time with Spencer over lunch.

And so a job that would have probably taken me two or three days got finished in just one.

And Spencer and Anna had some time for more important things.

And so Dad and I started in on the corn on Monday.

On Tuesday I made an attempt at moving the sprinkler.

It didn't go so well.

 

 And with just the two of us I didn't have much time to deal with it.

On Wednesday we were still at it. 

Chris (my brother) was able to make it out to help that day, which gave me just enough time to be able to give the sprinkler the attention it deserved. The flat tire in September had really carved out a nice deep wheel rut and I just so happened to shut off the sprinkler at exactly the wrong spot.

I  had to muck out a good 40 feet of the sprinkler track to get it back onto solid ground.

 

 I had a nice view when I climbed up to check the bin level.

And so we were all done by Thursday morning.

There is nothing better than getting the whole mess that is irrigated corn production out of the way for another year.  And we really didn't come out too badly, considering the year (driest water year (October-October) on record and hottest summer on record) Our yields were off by about 15-20%, which was a lot better than a lot of folks around here fared. I didn't even come close to my personal record low yield (a late season grey leaf spot infection in 2006 was responsible for that one) so I was pretty happy.


Katie was thrilled to get her morning Papa time back. (I think Papa was pretty happy about that too.)

As for me, it was off to do some custom wheat drilling for a neighbor.

Which is the end of October, which means that we are only eleven (11) weeks behind.  Keep in mind that a hundred and fifty years ago eleven weeks for a letter would be--(40 miles per day x 77 days....) oh wow. Yes, eleven weeks is bad even by 1800s standards.

In Which lobiwan Makes Mediocrity a Habit.

Mechanical Mayhem! Medical Mayhem! Fire, Fire! Can you handle it?

June 2011

I doubt it.

Job Security.

Some pretty interesting NASA research.

"...we're looking at a very high demand for land management at all levels on the landscape globally. We would be heading toward a place where the planet would be very carefully managed, from end to end." --Dr. Marc Imhoff

May 2010, Part III

The next day Anna and I spent some quality time after church moping in the park.

That afternoon Linda and I did some shopping. Over the last two weeks I had called poison control re:herbicide in eyes, visited the doctor re:sprained ankle, and called crop insurance re:destroyed circle of corn. I wanted to relax.

That night we finished reading the very last Laura book.
I spent the next day spraying some pre-emerge on the soybean ground.
And then it was time to load up the drill...

...get it calibrated....

...and drill some 'beans.

I caught the tail end of Birthday party preparations when I got home. Betsy had her summer hair all ready.

We got a nice rain to celebrate Anna's birthday.

Anna was pretty excited.

Five years old!


The next day was the last day of pre-school.


And we had a ball-themed party.

There were a lot of people there.

The next morning I checked on the soybeans...
...and on the wheat...
...(notice how the wheat is several days, if not a full week ahead in the strips where it got over-seeded while emptying the drill)...

...and then we decided to skip town since it was still to wet to keep planting the soybeans. We stopped and ate supper in Ingalls and then played on the playground across the street.
This is almost a really good picture.

Then we drove on to Pratt in order to find an indoor pool.
We didn't swim long, since the pool wasn't heated. Brrr!

We did find another playground though.




We stopped at another park later in the day too.


For some reason we ended up in Hutch, where we swam some more.


Then we had to hurry home so as to not miss the single greatest television event of all time (past and future.) Shauna brought some snacks:

The next day it was back to soybeans, even as the first wave planted were starting to emerge.

It almost rained again.

The next day I went to see the corn, were it had not merely almost rained.

And then finished drilling the 'beans.

And they finished drilling the new irrigation well.
It looked alright, I guess.

We were then able get the soybeans started off on the right foot, courtesy of the old well.

I had to stay out pretty late to make sure the sprinkler made it over the dirt mound from the well pit.

Then it was time for Luke's graduation. Anna got to go.

While Betsy and I waited for the sprinkler to finish up on the 'beans (and reflected on the very exciting secret we found out about that morning.)
We made it to Darrouzett pretty late having shut down the well for the very last time, after 59 years of service.

The next day was spent watching people jump into a creek.

The snakes didn't seem to mind either the people or the disturbing water color.

And then, before you could say "Safety First!" I was in the middle of an '80's era Mountain Dew commercial.



It was a really long commercial.



The next day we went to no-man's land to trespass on somebody's property.
It was a pretty place for trespassing.
They had some nice trees, and a nice dugout they dug out for fun.

Linda stole some flowers.

Betsy and Anna tried to steal some fish.

Anna took Mark for a ride.

And had fun with Silas.

Then we went back to Texas.

Anna had some more cousin time before we went back home on Monday.

And that was the end of May.