Walking in the Furrow
This past week there was a little time to kick back and relax as we pushed through the high heat and humidity to accomplish some fieldwork and then rush off to my second job to catch up with the work of framing a new house. The weekend was here and gone, but that's always expected in the springtime.
Every year we are required to complete field maps for the Farm Service Agency to certify our crops of corn, soybeans, alfalfa, wheat and orchard grass. For accuracy, Dad and I have always walked the fields together using the same steel chain and stakes used by my grandfather and my great-grandfather to measure the fields. This year, I broke away from tradition and bought a measuring wheel from a catalog. With the wheel and notebook in hand, I took the long walk across the fields alone.
When I reached the far northeast corner of the farm, I noticed the clouds were beginning to build and the sky had begun to darken. In the distance, I saw a bolt of lightning in the sky, so I lengthened my stride and walked vigorously as I rolled the measuring wheel. I headed toward home to wait for the storm to pass. The rain kept me from going to the construction site because it was now too dangerous to set trusses, so my unexpected, free afternoon gave me the opportunity to drive to Topeka to visit several implement dealers and price shop their four-basket hay tedders.
The rain took with it the high heat and humidity, giving us a window of ideal hay making weather that we needed. Now cooler and less humid, the work ahead of us could be done while enjoying a light breeze and sunny skies. We gathered and unloaded more than 1,100 small square bales of grass hay in two days. It nearly filled three-fourths of the north haymow in our barn. Our John Deere 336 square baler had been serviced and returned to the farm from Greenmark in Plymouth just in time for the new crop of dry hay, and it operated like a well-oiled sewing machine. Many farmers had hay ready to make, so getting someone to come to the farm to do custom round baling was impossible.
I remember the days when our whole family went to the field to make hay. We still had cows to milk at the time, but we still managed to get hay baled and unloaded quickly. Even before we were big enough to lift bales we would drag the bales from the chute of the baler to be lifted into place on the wagon by dad. He taught us how to load a wagon so that it wouldn't fall off on the way to the barn. We always joke that when it's done correctly, we guarantee our load to stay on the wagon when pulled at 55 mph! Dad also taught us how to stack hay in the haymow and the importance of building an edge all the way to the peak and tying each layer on, so it will not collapse out onto the floor.
I went ahead and no-tilled soybeans into cornstalks. I began spraying corn and soybeans and replanted some soybeans that had been flooded out. AgriFlite Services in Wakarusa sprayed my wheat with fungicide and insecticide. I prefer this method over ground application so there's no damage to the growing crop. Remember when spraying crops, it's important to always be a good neighbor and contact those with bee hives and other sensitive areas so they can protect them from unexpected drift.