Here comes the sun.....

Yesterday we had the perfect spring day.  Warm and sunny and no wind, which means we jumped on the tractor with the sprayer and went like crazy!  The wheat is big, especially for this time of the year.  It would have been better to have done this a few weeks ago, but Mother Nature had other plans, like rain!  We'll happily take the rain!!

We are applying a couple different herbicides and foliar fertilizer with lots of extra nutritional goodies!  It's like a multivitamin with a little bit of everything that a plant likes to grow and thrive.

A few of these photo will look familiar from last year.

This is Indy, pulling the Flexicoil sprayer.  It's 114 feet wide and Reynald drives pretty fast so we get a lot done in a short amount of time, which is essential this time of the year.

And, Bertha and I get to spend some quality time together.  

You can see that the tractor smashes down the wheat.  It will pop back some, but wheat this big is definitely damaged a little.  

Have you ever seen dead flamingos in Eastern Washington farm country?  I was shocked and amazed!!!

Happy Easter

We had a quiet Easter Day.  Mom and dad and also Ron and Claudia came for dinner in the early afternoon.  Had a wonderful meal and superb conversation.  I wonder if the six of us would ever run out of stuff to talk about!

A few images of our afternoon....

Reynald has a thing for cleaning the sink after we do up the pre-dinner dishes.  I'm not complaining!

The dinner menu....

Table setting.

I love these little chick place card holders.  And the crystal was a gift from Auntie Marge many years ago.  We use this beautiful stem ware for special occasions like today.

I love these bunny salt and pepper shakers in their own little blue ceramic basket.

My dinner plate!  I was stuffed and well worth it!

Chocolate mousse for dessert.  It's so yummy and rich.

Mom brought us an Easter lily and the daffodils are from our yard.  Both so wonderfully fragrant and beautiful.

And just in time for Easter, the daffodils at the end of our lane are blooming beautifully.

Biddy Rolls for Easter

A few years ago I came across this recipe that was in Ron's Aunt Helen's recipe file.  Thought they would be fun to make for Easter dinner this year, so I did!

Take a look......

I can't figure out how to rotate this, but you can see that Aunt Helen cut it out from the newspaper, many years ago.  Then she glued it on to notebook paper.  

Here are the chicks before they are baked.

Baked rolls!  I'll nest them in a basket to serve them on Sunday.  I think they are kind of cute!

Spring rain

Oh my, what a glorious rain fell last night and today.....over an inch!  I just went out to take a few photos, and the lawn squished when I walked on it!  The rain has delayed our farming but we're not complaining.  Last year the moisture outlook was so bleak.  The memory is still fresh.  We are so very very lucky this year, to have a plentiful amount........so far!

Yesterday I dug the rest of the carrots that over wintered in the garden.  I left them outside, hoping that Mother Nature would do the washing for me!

Lots of carrots!  They are as sweet as candy.  I've been giving them away as I get them washed and bagged.  

The rain clouds have moved on to the east.  The dark clouds made a beautiful backdrop to the green wheat, the red barn and everything else.

A full to running over rain gauge.  This doesn't happen very often,

The clouds were so pretty as they headed away to the east.

I thought this was a particularly ominous looking cloud to the north, over the shop.

I love this contrast between the green wheat and the dark rain filled clouds.

The sweet cherry tree is starting to swell buds.

The chickens were out enjoying the muddy yard, hoping to find a worm, or just picking at the mis-shapen carrots that went over their fence.

What a beautiful rooster we have.  He's so handsome and stately.

Look how much bigger he is than the hens.

I discovered this little apricot tree growing in the garden.  I couldn't just dig it up, so I planted it in the chicken yard!  It is my hope that is will grow up and provide some shade and drop fruit for the chickens to pick at.

A close up look at my handsome man!  I don't have a name for him.  Suggestions?

Here he is crowing.  He has a big, hearty crow!

The dwarf forsythia is blooming like mad.  And look at how much the wheat is growing!  So beautiful with all the winter and spring moisture.

Dwarf forsythia blooming like mad!

It's so bright a cheery.

I thought this was so pretty.  The wheat is lush and green, growing like crazy with the ample moisture and a shot of fertilizer that we applied a few days ago.

Early spring flowers......

and farm work!  Now that I have been through a full year of blog writing, I realized that there are going to be repeats if I keep posting!  We kind of do the same thing, year after year on the farm!  Same with my yard!  The flowers tend to be the same, the layout tends to be the same, the produce tends to be the same.  Nevertheless, each process holds excitement!  I will always smile at daffodils blooming and I will always be excited the first day I get on the tractor in the spring.  Yesterday was full of excitement!!

These flowers are blooming right now, and I got to spend some time with little Colt, dragging the harrow across some beautiful land.

Take a look......

Miniature iris.  The blooms only last about a week, so you need to pay attention when they decide to appear to enjoy them.

Is there anything more happy than a clump of daffodils blooming?

This is Helebore, or Lenten Rose.  I really love it.

And this daphne is blooming her heart out, and so fragrant.

The bright, sunny day coaxed me in to airing out all the beading and even hanging out the sheets to dry!  I wasn't sure it would be warm enough for the flannel to dry, but they did!  And oh my, what a glorious fragrance we fell asleep to last night.

The sky was so pretty yesterday.

This lone daffodil survived the shop construction project of 2012.   I think I need to plant more!

The quaking aspen in the pasture are starting to bud out.  

It's not quite as pretty in this photo as it was yesterday afternoon, but the sun shining through the fuzzy catkins was striking.

And, inside the house is this cute reminder of the arrival of spring on the farm!

Before I could go to work on the tractor, I helped Reynald unload the new hitch for the drill that we have been working on.  One more thing to put together!!  That project has been put on hold for a few weeks.

Reynald drove to Washtucna WA yesterday to pick up the new drill hitch from Stoess Manufacturing. 

Here's Reynald and Kenny working hard!

And finally, mid afternoon, I made it to the tractor.  It's still very wet, so I had to wait until mid-afternoon before I could do any field work.  The same holds true for today.  I'm not complaining.  A slow start is nice!

Little Colt.  I really love this tractor!

Colt and the harrow.  At 7 mph and 82 feet wide, I get quite a few acres covered per hour!

The view from the cab of the tractor.  

We've had some nice rains this spring rains and the wheat looks fantastic!  What a great life we have!

Spring seeding

We haven't planted any spring crops for several years, but this year with the abundance of moisture that has been absorbed in to the ground over the winter and early spring, we decided to pull the trigger and plant a few acres.

Because we haven't used the spring set of drills for a long time, a considerable amount of repair was needed to bring them up to optimum operating level.

Here's what we did a few days ago......

All these white hoses needed to be replaced.  They have deteriorated and become brittle from sitting in the sun, year after year.

Each hose comes from the tower and is inserted in to the boot.  Seed and fertilizer are delivered through these hoses.

White hoses were replaced with these new black hoses.  They should not break down quite a quickly as the white ones did.

It comes in a big reel.

You use this special tool that cuts through the hose like a hot knife through butter.

Then Reynald shoves one end of the hose in to the tower, while I put the other end in to the boot and secure with a hose clamp.

This is the boot point, that plows through the soil to plant the seed.  

You may notice that this is a solid packer wheel, as opposed to the split packer that we have been working on  in the shop.  

Spring seeding is not as touchy as fall seeding.  There is adequate moisture, so you don't have to plant the seed as deep, therefore, you don't need to worry about burying the seed too deep.  The split packer drill allows you to go deep for moisture, without covering the seed too deep......usually!

Now that I am writing this, I realize that there are several photos that I didn't take!  Not to worry, I will take more when we actually start seeding, that will better show the difference between these drills and the set that we have been working on (still not finished!) this winter.