Planting has started!

I am a little behind on posting this.  I have more farming updates coming in a few days!

Spring is finally here and the weather is being mostly cooperative for the start of planting season.  We officially started planting on Tuesday May 7^th!  Everyone was happy to get started.  Brad is running the Hagie sprayer.  He goes across the field before everyone else.  He sprays a herbicide and also applies 32% Nitrogen.  After the spraying is done the tillage crew (it mostly consists of 1 person, but I still stay the tillage crew I think it sounds better) goes over the field and works the ground.  Finally the planter goes across the field.  The timing on the spraying is very important.  Brad can spray some of the fields after they are planted, but again timing is important. 

Brad spraying around the main farm.  Vincent was able to ride along for a bit.

This is a picture we have never had before.  This is the planter in a field we recently acquired!  Too bad I only had my cell phone to take a picture.

This year we are using a new seed tender.  It is used to deliver seed to the planters in the field as needed.  It has had a few small problems they have needed to work out but I think overall the guys still like it.  I haven’t had a chance to see it in action yet.  As off Tuesday May 14^th all the corn was planted around home and they were starting to move down south.

The new tender trailer.  I still need to see it in action!

Almost two weeks or so ago Vincent and I gave Brad a ride out to the field to get in his sprayer and then we stayed to watch the guys work on a broken tire on the field cultivator.  Then we drove the Ranger around the field and helped pick up a piece of field tile that was washed away in the flooding we had a few weeks ago.  While we were there we got to see Grandpa get a tractor stuck.  Grandpa doesn’t usually get equipment stuck, so we took a picture.  The ground was really soft in one area and someone was bound to get stuck, it just happened to be Grandpa this time.  I love taking pictures when the equipment is stopped (aka broken down) because you can get some really neat and unique photos.  The rest of the time you basically get the same photos year after year with slightly different equipment in the same location.  I love farming but looking at a photo album of equipment in the field from generally the same angle over and over again is boring to me.  I bet if Brad looked at it, he would instantly know what field it was from, where I was standing, what year it was, etc.  Clearly we don’t look at the pictures the same way!

When you see the utility trailer in the field, it is not a good thing.

Lee and Brad working on the field cultivator.

Grandpa got the tractor stuck in the soft ground.

Please keep an eye out for farming equipment, they can’t always see you when they are driving.