Mom Video

We are in the midst of the county fair season and there are many 4H and FFA families on the verge of . . . well, let's just say there are a lot of very busy 4H'ers and FFA kids across the country right now.  I found this video this morning and it made me giggle.  I hope all you 4H moms and "retired" 4H/FFA moms get a giggle as well.

 

 

 

 

Ok Boys, back to work.  Only 15 days to the Clayton County Fair!  

 



Farm Boy Creativity

I love farm boy creativity.  Take 1 very hot and humid day, add in a couple of boys and Mom never knows what to expect.

I wasn't sure what was transpiring when Son #3 wanted to know where to find the dish soap (Apparently he has never had a need to use it before now.) and his pop-up tent.  Then I looked out the window to see every hose on the farm connected together and going all the way from the seed warehouse across the farm yard, to the top of the hill by the machine shed.  Next, I saw Son #1 wandering from building to building.  When I asked what he was looking for I got the usual "not much" comment.

When they ran out of the house in their swimming trunks I figured they were going to have a water fight.  Well, they did a little better than that . . .  All I can say is that necessity is the mother of invention.

Silage tarps tacked down with tent spikes make
a great slip and slide.

Squirt a little dish soap on the plastic to
add some speed.

 

FUN ALL THE WAY DOWN!

The Passing of the Chickens

It's that time of year once again when the boys need to make room for their 4H broiler chicken fair projects. That means the old layers get booted out of their coop so the new layers can move in and the baby broilers have their own coop when they arrive. What it comes down to is that we do not have enough suitable buildings for all of our fine feathered friends. So, sons #1 and #2 need to find new homes for their lovely, feathered ladies to the dismay of their egg customers. It is ashame as the hens are just over a year old and in their prime egg laying stage.

But, never fear! Number 1 did some wheeling and dealing with a friend of his to take a few as well as neighbors of ours decided it's time for their kids to take on a little more responsibility. So, Sunday afternoon the last 21 chickens took a short trip down the road.

I believe these three are wondering what
their parents got them into this time.

#1 giving a lecture on the color of chickens ears.  Did you
know that you can determine the color of the egg a chicken
will lay by looking at it's ears?  A chicken with brown ears lays
brown eggs and a chicken with white ears lays white eggs.

As you can see these chickens are on the tame side. 








                                    The ladies checking out their new digs.













 

 

 

This picture has nothing to do with the chickens

but I thought the lush green pasture and the red barn

looked nice.



Saturday Video

 

This is how people in rural communities take care of each other. 

 

 



The Smell of Money . . .

or, the lack of. 

Would you believe that in this picture there are thousands of gallons of liquid hog manure flowing by?

Look closely at the ditch. 

Now do you see it? 

Well, you can see a hose but not the actual manure.  While we are busy applying anhydrous ammonia which is our source of nitrogen to our corn fields prior to planting many of our neighbors, who are livestock farmers, are busy applying manure (another great source of nitrogen for corn) to their fields.  This hose is carrying manure from our neighbor's hog building to one of his fields 3 miles away.

It used to be when I was growing up when we would go by someone spreading manure in a field we would get a whiff of the manure and would comment "there is that smell of money".   (It never occurred to us to complain because that was part of living in the country.  Before I get carried away with the topic of home owners who complain about agriculture AFTER buying a home in a rural setting let me get back to my subject at hand.)  But, today we very rarely get that whiff of money because of advances in manure application. 

There are businesses that do custom manure application.  You could say they know their sh%*#.  (I know, cheap joke but I had to throw it in.)  The company comes in and runs the hose from the manure pit to the target field. 

A pumper set up to pull manure from the pit

underneath this hog building.

  Here is another view of the pumper.
                                                                               
   

    

The hose is strung along roads in the ditches, threaded

under roads through culverts, and dropped across fields. 

Here are a couple of the spools used to transport the hose.  It's a good thing as I would hate to have to untangle several miles of hose like often happens with extension cords on this farm.

 

                                                                     

 

 

   

 

 

 

   

 

 



Once the hose is threaded out to the field, the business end of the hose is attached to an applicator that injects or incorporates the manure into the soil.  Even close up to this applicator there is very little oder.  

                                                                                                          

So here are the cool facts:  This outfit can pump 1.2 million gallons of manure in 24 hours.  That is a lot of fluid! There aren't tractors pulling large manure spreaders up and down the road at all hours so there is less traffic on the roads, it's safer, it's quieter, and there is No Smell. 

 

By knifing in the manure immediately, the crop to be planted in this field will get full benefit of the nitrogen in this manure.  When manure lays on top of the field for very long some of the nitrogen volatilizes into the atmosphere and the farmer loses some of the manure value.

 

 

Sometimes I think this is what our urban neighbors believe is used on today's farms.  But, this is FAR from the truth.  If you look closely at the tractor guiding the manure applicator you will see there is a GPS antenna mounted.  When the manure application is complete, the farmer will probably receive a map of the farm that shows where the manure was applied and how much was applied. 

 

This is all good for the farmer, his crops, and the environment.





Here are a couple of other pics of the hose that I thought were interesting.

The hose really isn't that big.  The end here is about 4 inches in diameter.

When full the hose looks like one nasty boa constrictor.

 

 

Happy Ag Day!

Here are some interesting stats that are great food for thought.



Thank you to all the farmers out there but also a BIG thank you to the farmers' support network.  This support network would include the bankers who finance a farmers input investments, animal feed suppliers, veterinarians who help keep the farm animals healthy, fertilizer and chemical suppliers who keep the farmers planting in the spring and summer, seed companies who breed and produce the farmers seed, the fuel suppliers who keep the farmers rolling all year round, the marketing advisers who help farmers market their crops, the individuals that work in the processing and packing plants who process the farmers products for the US consumers and world customers, the grain handlers at local elevators, barge terminals and at ocean ports who move the farmers grain safely and efficiently, the truckers who haul all of the above mentioned plus more, and the ag journalists who keep farmers informed on the latest information effecting agriculture.

I know I have left many people out of my list but you get the idea and there are A LOT of people who make agriculture in the United States the best in the world!

Until next time,
Suzanne

Guest Writer Today

The following Letter to The Editor was written by a member of the 4H club to which my kiddos belong.  It's great to see a young person take the initiative and express her concerns and ideas.
Thanks Shana!

Many kids show livestock at the county fair every year, whether they show ducks, chickens, rabbits, goats, sheep, hogs, or cattle.  After showing at the fair, some members choose to sell their animals.  Because 4-H is a program that is here to teach life-skills to the next generation, a lot of livestock exhibitors choose to sell their project animals at the sale the Monday after fair.   Every year a sale is put on by the Clayton County Extension Office and a group of local auction houses.   

The auction is a great way for us to learn how an auction works.  As we raise our market animals, we learn how to feed and care for them.  The reason market animals are raised, of course, is to go to market.  Selling our exhibits at the fair gives us an idea of how an auction really works, and all exhibitors and their families are able to meet with the buyer afterwards. 

Our problem that we face is with the buyers.  The buyers we get, we are very grateful to.  But because our buyers are so few, animals are going for regular market price or below.  Being a showman at the fair myself, it is discouraging and disappointing that my cattle can be sold for such a low price after all the work put into them.  All of the animals at the fair have been custom grown and finished to be shown; this means that very, very, special care has been given to these animals so that they can reach their full potential in both quality and quantity.

Potential buyers in the community believe they face several problems.  Many are afraid to buy an animal because they will not be able to utilize all of the meat.  Simple solutions to this problem have been found.  For the smaller animals (chickens, ducks, and rabbits) the buyer can send the animal home with the exhibitor.  Then their money will be given to the exhibitor who will use those funds for projects for next year or pay off previous animal expenses.  For the larger animals, families have been known to get together and pool their money in one animal.  Two or more families can buy a steer, hog, goat, or sheep, and split the meat. 

There is also the choice to take your animal and re-sell it at a sale barn.  This brings us to another concern .  Transportation.  This one is easy to fix.  Volunteer trailers  take your purchased livestock to the local locker or sale barn of your choice.  There they will be processed or re-sold.

Help us encourage our local youth to stay involved in agriculture.  Let this be a learning experience for both the members of Clayton County 4-H and yourself.  Join us on Monday, August 6^th at 9:00 a.m. for the annual Clayton County Livestock Auction!

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day!  Joe is out spraying, Dad is planting, Stan is soil finishing and Amos and I are in the seed warehouse. Yesterday, a friend jokingly asked where Joe was going to take me for brunch this morning.   My Mothers Day brunch consisted of a granola bar, a chocolate Easter egg and some iced tea in the Pioneer office.  As long as we can plant it's a great day.  We can do brunch next winter. 

Cesear on patrol.

It's relatively quiet this morning so I want to introduce you to three unassuming individuals that are important to our farming operation.  This is Ceasar.  He is 12 pounds of claws, teeth, and fluff.  Before we had Ceasar we would have a mouse nest in a pallet or two of seed each year.  We can't sell bags of seed that have been chewed on by rodents. A bag of seed corn can cost up to $310.  We have had Ceasear for eight years and since Cesear has come along we have not had a rodent problem in our seed warehouse.  He is definately worth his weight in gold.

Cesear is pretty much all business but he does like to
cuddle up once in awhile.

Next we have Cheese Cake. (I don't name the animals - I just buy their food.).  He was born a year ago.  Here is a picture of him with his mom, Lucky Bob, and his litter mates. 


Cheese Cake and litter mates at three weeks old.


Lucky Bob was a good mouser and her off-spring have always been as well.  Lucky Bob passed away last fall after being a very prolific cat for several years.  We have always had neighbors and friends who have wanted our cats for mousing so we only have the two cats on our farm.
Lucky Bob always had her litters in the rag box in the farm shop and that is still Cheese Cake's favorite place to sleep

Cheese Cake may need to improve on his work ethic.

 Our newest addition to the farm is Ugly George.  He is a guinea.  I heard that guineas are suppose to get rid of rodents and reptiles.  Since I hate snakes I thought we would give it a shot.  I bought George from a 4Her at the end of our county fair last August.  George makes the most unique and/or annoying sound we have ever heard.  He has pretty gray and white dotted feathers and he poops a lot.  We will see what kind of job he does for us this spring as all of the Lord's creatures start coming out of hibernation.

Ugly George

Have a great day and enjoy the great weather with your Mom!

A Great Day for Planting Corn (and Soybeans)!

The rainbow ended right over the
Pioneer seed boxes!

What a great day for planting!  Last night about 8:00 we had a rain shower and then the sun came out, the wind stopped blowing and we had a double rainbow.

This morning started out with the sun
and just a breeze.  It was a "full crew" day.  Besides our two fulltime employees we have three spring and fall parttime helpers.  Rollie is our neighbor, landlord and ace soil finisher operator.  Chuck retired from the co-op a couple of years

Or maybe it ended in the corn field.

ago and now helps haul NH3 tanks early in the spring and then helps get seed delivered to customers and our planters.  Stan, works in town and helps us in the evenings and weekends.  He has been helping Mom and Dad for about 20 years.  Stan runs the NH3 applicator and the planters.  Then we have our intern.  Amos is an agronomy major at U of W, Plattville, we keep him busy in the Pioneer Hi-Bred department.  Without our great part-time help we would never accomplish what we do everyday. 
I snuck out of the seed warehouse today and made a seed delivery.  I hadn't been off the farm since Monday and wanted to see what was happening in the country.   Wow!  There is a lot of corn in the ground especially considering that no one really got started planting around here until Monday.  Tonight Joe and I were going through inventories and looking at customers needs and we came to the conclusion that our area is at least 40% planted. 

This is our soybean planter.  In a typical year (a phrase I use very lightly)
 we have one planter on corn and one on soybeans.  Because of the late
start to planting we are using both planters to get the corn planted.

That is amazing - in five days we can be so far along in planting completion.  I listen to the Big Show on WMT Radio at noon on the weekdays and it sounds like this is state wide.  I would like to know how acres there are per planter row in Iowa.  In other words - how many acres does each planter row plant in Iowa.  Equipment has come a long ways.  Rollie always laughs at how we can plant more corn in one day than he used to plant in an entire spring.  One of these days I'm going to sneak out of the warehouse again and hopefully take a few pictures of Dad planting and show you what the inside of a tractor during planting season looks like.

This is a seed tender.  We deliver bulk corn and soybean seed to
our customers with these.  By using bulk seed, customers eliminate LOTS
of paper bags.  Bulk seed is great for handling and for the environoment.

Do Not Be Afraid!

I repeat - Do Not Be Afraid!  After researching into historical weather records I have discovered that the yellowish white orb in the sky is in fact the sun.

It's my dad's birthday today.  Happy 71st Birthday Dad!  The only thing my dad ever wants for his birthday is to be able to plant corn.  Unfortunately, this will be one of those rare birthdays where he will not be planting.  Two weeks ago the soil temps were running right around 47F - 48F.  Then after one or two snow/slush storms the soil temps fell to 37F.  Today, the 4 inch soil temp is 42F.  To top it all off it rained and sleeted all day yesterday so it will be a while before corn planting gets started in Northeast Iowa. 

Soil thermometer at the 4 inch depth.

The soil temperature is a very important piece of information that crop farmers in the northern part of the midwest follow closely in early spring.  Corn germinates at 50F.  We like to start planting corn when the soil temps are below 50F but are definately rising and the weather is in the warming mode.  If seed sets in cold and/or wet soils for too long, the seed looses it's vigor and may not germinate or emerge healthy due to the onset of diseases.



Since he can't plant today, Dad is driving around the yard rechecking and double rechecking monitors
and electronics to make sure all is ready for when the weather does break.

Seed customers have been calling and stopping in today to pick up seed and discuss the late start to planting.  Everyone is trying to remain calm but I can tell everyone is nervous.   Let's hope the weather straightens out soon.

Joe loading a customer's seed. 
He likes to load seed once in awhile so
his forklift skills don't get rusty. :-)

Our employee "D" helping me in the warehouse since he can't be in the field.

Anhydrous Ammonia Application

Today is a cold, damp, yucky day.  So, I'm going to take you back to about 10 days ago when it was warmer, drier and we were applying anhydrous ammonia (NH3). 

Anhydrous ammonia (NH3 for short hand) is the form of nitrogen we use in our farming operation.  There are several different forms of nitrogen fertilizer - liquid 28% and 32%, urea, ammonium sulfate - but in our operation NH3 is the best form to use.  Corn being a grass plant requires nitrogen to grow. The soybean is a legume and manufactures it's own nitrogen.

Tractor, NH3 Tool Bar and NH3 Tank

The NH3 applicator is the first tool we take across our fields in the spring.   Behind the tractor is what is called the NH3 tool bar.  It is 47 feet wide.

A view of a coulter.

View of the front of tool bar.

On the front of the tool bar is a row of large, sharp, round blades called coulters.  The coulters cut through the plant residue. 







Next, there is a row of knives.  There are 17 knives on this bar.  Each knife is curved and has a plastic hose running down the side of it.  This tube carries the nitrogen from the tank into the soil.  The knives go about 8 to 10 inches deep and this is where the nitrogen is placed.  The closing disks then seal the nitrogen  

View of a knife and closing disks.

into the soil right behind the knives.  There are two disks behind each knife that form a V to get the soil over the knife opening.

Behind the tool bar we pull the anhydrous tank.  There is enough nitrogen in this size tank to apply about 17 to 20 acres at the rates we use.  Anhydrous ammonia has an extremely low boiling point so the tanks are pressurized.  The NH3 is a liquid in the tank but when it hits the soil it turns to the gas form.  That is why it is important to have good closing devises behind the knives. 

A large hose runs from the NH3 tank to the cooling tower on the tool bar.  From the cooling tower smaller hoses take the NH3 to each knife.  Joe will probably cringe when he reads this since I have skipped a lot of the details but that is the gist of this implement. 

It takes us about seven days of running to get our nitrogen applied.  Joe usually starts in the morning about 5:00 am.  My dad replaces him about 7:30 am.  Joe then replaces Dad again about 8:00 pm and runs until midnight.  We have a retired gentleman who hauls NH3 tanks all day long back and forth from our supplier's facility and our fields.  

 I should make one comment about these pictures.  When we were putting on NH3 it was very dry.  We had not had any precipitation for a few weeks so it was very dusty out in the field.  So that is dust not NH3 behind the tractor.

CommonGround

Dawn Caldwell, a fellow CommonGround volunteer from Nebraska, did an interview with Consumer Ag Connection Radio.  Below is a link to a part of this interview.  Dawn does a great job explaining why we are involved with the CommonGround initiative.

http://www.agweb.com/multimedia/sharing-commonground-with-consumers-part-4/

Great job Dawn!

Weekend on The Farm

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning.  It's a far cry from the 70F weather we had last weekend.

It's not the April 15th Blizzard of '72, '73, '74 or whatever year it was but it was definately Mother Nature's way of saying that it's a little early to be planting corn.

Last weekend we had
temperatures in the 70's with sunny conditions which was great for NH3, seeding alfalfa, and pulling fence lines.  It definately spoiled us.



Today, the sun came out and finished melting the snow but it definately is not warm out.  But, it is warm enough to clean out the calf pens.  Once planting breaks loose there will not be a lot of time get the corners of the pens clean so today it is serious, deep cleaning get all the nitty-gritty cleaned up.

 This is one of the chores that the boys hate to do.  I remember hating it when I was growing up but it is one of those character building jobs on the farm. 
It's also a great way to work off some of that extra energy that boys always seem to accumulate in the spring.