Snow, Wind and more wind

 Last week it was cold and windy and cold and windy and cold and snowy and windy!  We're back in the field, on schedule to finish seeding by week's end.  At least the snow provided some much needed moisture!

The second snowfall event last week!

Poor little grape hyacinth bravely blooming despite the cold.

Daffodils and snow!  

A dramatic late afternoon sky and Baxter.

Seeding spring wheat, sans snow!

Equipment line up and such a pretty sky.  I took this photo after I parked the coil packer at the end of the line.  My best attempt to keep it even with everything else! 

Easter Egg Dye and Hunt

 Sunday we gathered at the Funk family residence to dye eggs, enjoy a delicious brunch prepared by David, Roni Jo and Ryan, and then hunt for hidden eggs after nap time!  A great time was had by all.

Taking it all in before he decides to help.

Helping Auntie!

Matthew and GG over seeing the egg dyeing.  

and one more thing grammy......

Some eggs were relatively easy to find.....

and some were cleverly camouflaged!    

Snow Delay

 We woke up to about a 1/2 inch of snow this morning.  After a short break, it began to snow again, and continued most of the day.   At times the ground was white, but mostly it melted as it fell.  Needless to say, we did not seed today!

The poor daffodils are bent over from the cold, cold nights.

This clump is particularly sad and the peony that is trying so hard to grow is bent over as well.

Everything in the yard has had a rough go this past week.  

This is about as white as it got here at our house, even with snow falling most of the day.

The drills are parked for the day.

Kal the tractor is waiting for warmer weather just like the rest of us!

Freshly seeded spring wheat field.  We won't be seeing new sprouts any time soon with this cold weather.

Summer Quilt

 Continuing with the seasonal quilt theme for each bedroom...... I'm nearing completion with just two more to go.  This will be a summer quilt.  I bought the print fabric so long ago I don't even remember where or when it happened.  This past fall I purchased the white background at One Sister Designs, formally The Buggy Barn. It has taken me this long to come up with a plan for the prints.

Laying out the print fabric to get an idea of what this will look like.  

I decided on a vintage look with a 16 patch checkerboard block.

Pressing the four patches so they can be worked in to the 16 patch.

This is a neat way to press the seams so that they lay flat where they meet.  

Finished piecing the top and ready to go to Nicki for quilting.  

A close up of the quilting by Nicki

On the bed, just to see how it looks.  I'll wait until the first of June to put it on for the summer season.

Sheep Skin Renovation

 Several years ago I purchased this sheep skin from Alicia Funk, David's aunt who lives in New Hampshire and has a small flock of sheep.  When they butcher they not only use the meat but process the skins to use and to sell to appreciative customers.  

My skin has seen considerable use.  Roni suggested that I brush out the wool with Baxter's brush to revive and clean.  It worked!  It looks new again and is super soft and cushy.  I'm so happy with the result.

Dawn to Dark Season

 Spring field work is in full swing.  All four of us are operating some sort of equipment, sometimes two or three tractors in one field at a time!  Matthew is seeding at his place near Odessa.  I have been cultivating the re-crop spring wheat ground and now the winter wheat fields that we destroyed due to the drought.  Alicia is fertilizing the re-crop acres and Reynald is hauling product for her.  We're all putting in long hours but we can see the fruits of our labor at the end of each day.  It's very satisfying.

Sunrise and Arthur!

For some reason I really love shadows.  If you look closely you can see me in the tractor seat in the shadow, the cultivator in the rearview mirror and my satellite guidance screen.  This is on the re-crop ground.

Then on to the winter wheat ground that we destroyed.  It's along story......the short version is that because of the drought we got a very poor germination rate on our winter wheat crop last fall.  However, the cheat grass sprouted and thrived after a sprinkle of rain came through while we were seeding.  It wasn't enough to help the terribly dry soil conditions for the wheat seeds, but the cheat grass was super happy!  We have never seen cheat grass germination like we're seeing this year.  We theorize that with the extreme heat last summer, the protective coating on the seed enabled it sprout with only a tiny bit of moisture.  The bad news is that we have destroyed a couple thousand acres of winter wheat.  The good news is that we have also destroyed an amazing amount of cheat grass and goat grass.  Federal Crop Insurance will help pay the bills and and aid to tillage rate of Round-up, followed by me and the cultivator, will take care of the cheat grass and goat grass!  We will plant spring wheat on all the destroyed winter wheat acres and hope and hope and hope for rain.

This photo shows how thick the cheat grass is between the rows of wheat.  It's not supposed to look like a lawn!  There should be some soil showing between the rows of wheat.   It also shows just how small the wheat plants are and the failure to thrive, due to the drought.  

Cheat grass growing on top of cheat grass!  The wider leaf and darker green plants are winter wheat.  It's so much smaller than it should be at this point in the season.

Another view of the wheat and cheat grass growing between the rows.  The cheat grass is turning red from the round-up that was applied a little over a week ago.  

More thick cheat grass but you can also see how heavy the straw residue is which is what we strive for.

And, to continue to drive the point home, more cheat grass growing on top of cheat grass!  This is actually very discouraging in a way, and at the same time encouraging, because we have successfully eliminated a huge problem that has plagued us for years, and will no doubt continue to do so, but we've made what we hope is a dent.

Cultivated ground on the right and more to do on the left.  You can see here that the wheat crop is not what it should be.

This image shows just how dismal the winter wheat crop is and what poor germination we had last fall.  This is a different field that the above images.

This image shows how poor the stand is and while the cheat grass isn't quite as thick in this particular photo, it's still significant and much worse than this in other places in the field.  

And the sun goes down on another day.  Tomorrow we start all over again.  Even with the frustrations, it's a really good life.  

When Two Worlds Collide

 Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, Alicia played with a woodwind quintet in Spokane.  Sunday morning she was running Spencer the the Sprayer, finishing an aid to tillage application of Round-Up on Zeiler Ranch stubble ground. She finished in time to move the sprayer home to Rolinco. 

She packed up her flute and performance clothes and put them in the water truck so that she could change after the move, practice a wee bit, and then be ready to go to Spokane for the performance when Matthew arrived to pick her up!  The definition of Farm Fresh Flute!

And, just in case you haven't seen this, or it's been awhile and you would like to see it again, here's the link to Farm Fresh Flute on youtube.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsWEIdN85Z0

Flute, music and a change of clothes in the water truck!