Week in Review

The past week has been a menagerie of activity.  We finished seeding, Alicia and I started mowing straw, I made salsa with produce from our garden, I got to spend some time in the yard/garden, and we took some time checking fields to see if and how the wheat is coming up.

The first seeded fields are coming along nicely, even though we had some rain on them, which can cause the soil to crust and prevent the little seedlings from emerging.  There is some sign of "curling" but for the most part, plants are popping through.

The coming week shows more rain forecast and cooler temperatures.  Fall has definitely arrived.

Filling the last load of fertilizer in to the air cart.

Just seeded ground.  

Reynald in the distance, making the last few passes on the field.

New plants.  Grow baby grow!!

Sweet peppers for salsa.  Hot peppers in the back ground, not yet picked.

I love pumpkins!

And zinnias and pumpkins!

Zinnias, larkspur and Mayor Pete watching over the garden.

Some of the ears of ornamental corn that I harvested this week.

This day the sky was spectacular.  It was hard to keep working.  I wanted to sit and watch the clouds and enjoy the brilliant color.

The start of salsa week!  This pot isn't all tomatoes!  There are sweet and hot peppers, garlic, onions a little salt and some vinegar, all combined to make some pretty terrific salsa.  

Seeding update

Reynald and Alicia are marching right along with getting the seed in the ground.  They are covering about 500 acres a day!  This is great for them but a lot of work for me!  I can hardly keep up getting the seed and dry fertilizer.  I thought that I might be able to get a few things done around the house and yard this week but that has turned out to be false!  No matter.  Seeding is priority number one and I'm happy to be part of the dream team.

After I get product, I have been helping fill the air carts.  It speeds up the process a little bit.  This is the dry fertilizer going in.

The auger brings it from the ground to the top of the seed cart.

This side of the air cart is full of dry fertilizer.  The other side holds the wheat seed.

After the tank is full, Alicia scoops out the extra in to a shovel....

and throws it back in to the back of the truck.  This is part of her farm girl fit workout!

Here's Reynald filling wheat in the the other compartment in the air cart.  

Wheat going from the back of the truck in to the auger and then in to the cart.  A full cart will seed about 120 acres.  With two sets of drills going, they cover a lot of acres in a day!

Overnight some grey partridges decided to investigate the drill.  This happy bird walked the entire length of the drill, which is 56 feet!  I don't know why, but this just cracked me up!

Happy New Year!

We had our New Year's Eve party last night.  We consider seeding our winter wheat crop in the fall, the start of our new year, and today is the day that happens!

I finished coil packing yesterday and then Reynald and I went back out to a couple of our fields and picked up some rocks that were too big to make it through the drill.  This boulder was too heavy to dead lift so we had to get creative.

This looks like a glacier deposited boulder.

We dug holes in the soil for the back tires of the gator to sink in to.

This allowed the tail gate of the gator to be closer to the ground.  The gator bed has a hydraulic lift but we wanted to get the back end as close to the ground as we could.

Reynald kept telling me that this is how the pyramids were built!  We collected some flat rocks and built a platform, rolled the boulder on to that, which made it closer to the back of the gator.  Then we both, but mostly Reynald, lifted.

Whew!

Both sets of drills prepped, ready and waiting.

We had a wonderful dinner and champagne to celebrate. 

Matthew is almost finished seeding so we toasted his almost finish and our start!

Reynald looks tired already!

Today starts our new year.  Alicia and Reynald are running the drills.  It's time for Alicia to learn this process and she is so excited.  I will be getting seed and fertilizer and helping fill drills.  Between those duties, I will try to catch up on a neglected yard, garden and house.  I'm looking forward to being home for a couple hours each day.

My two favorite farmers.  I love this so much.

Rolinco Farms crew!!