Harvest Time, and Other Ramblings

Ok so once again I'm not holding up my end of the bargin and writing something once a month.  I was all ready to sit down and wrtie a post in september, but my favorite part of farming started before I got the chance.  We were able to get started with harvest work on the 23rd of september this year, which is about a week earlier than normal.  So needless to say things around the farm here have been pretty hectic.  This year's harvest run started out with lots of problems.  Living on a farm comes with some special challenges, and this year it seems like all of those special challenges have happend to us.  We had actually started preparing equipment several weeks earlier, but I guess we didn't prepare well enough.  We started the combine and found out a few of the features weren't working, nothing that would keep us from harvesting, just things like the gps yield monitor and a few other electroinic things.  This is where having our special challenges comes in, see we have rodents around our place all the time, and since they are around they like to chew on wires which causes our problems.  It took us about a week but we got most of the problems fixed.

Here's a view from the top of the grain truck we were cutting soybeans which is what you see piled in the truck.


Now for my other ramblings, I'm sorry if I make any readers mad here but I'm going to get back on my soapbox.  I have heard so many things lately about how our food isn't safe to eat, that all of our meat has antibiotics in it etc.  Chipotle had  a commercial that basically depicted the farmer as a lazy drug pushing clown, and farms as nothing but big factories pumping out cows, chickens etc like cars off an assembly line.  Well people I'm here to tell you those things couldn't be farther from the truth.  I'm going to say the same thing everyone has always said don't believe every thing you see on TV or read on the Internet (this blog excluded I'm telling the truth).  I see people posting things on facebook that come from some ag organizations trying to combat all the negative things out there, and then others who have no idea what they are talking about making comments because they read something on the Internet.  The best thing I can tell you is to educate yourself about where things are coming from.  If you are concerned about your milk or eggs having antibiotics in them used in production do some research.  Every state should have a board of animal health, or you can go to the USDA and find out what the regulations are.  Even the animal associations will have good information on how food is produced.  I'm talking about organizations like the American dairy association, national pork producers, national cattleman's beef association, even farm bureau has good information, not just for the producer, but the consumer as well.  I know I say this in every post, but you could even ask a farmer.  Leave your question as a comment here, and I will get you hooked up with information, or even a farmer that deals with what your asking about all the time.  I only raise corn and soybeans, but our family milked cows here on our farm for 60 years, so we know a thing or two about milk production.  If I can't answer a question I know other producers who could, or I can use my long list of ag industry contacts to get the info you want.  So please please please don't be afraid to educate yourself, like I've heard before there are no stupid questions.  I'm always willing to answer any question because I love agriculture, and I really like talking about what we do to feed the world. 

Like always let me know if you have questions, and I'll do what I can to get them answered.  Hopefully I'll get another post up before we get done with harvest.  We will be diving full force in to corn harvest today, so I'll get more pictures.  Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy.

Brad

Summer Time

Boy I thought I would be doing a much better job of keeping everyone updated on what's happening here on the farm, but needless to say this spring and summer have been kinda crazy for us.  We started the spring off about 3 weeks behind our normal schedule, which sounds like a long time, but we were still able to complete all of our planting before June 1 which is our target. 

We started out by applying our nitrogen in the form of anhydrous ammonia.  We use this as our nitrogen source because it's the cheapest form of nitrogen, which is an important nutrient for our corn crop.  We spent about 4 days applying nitrogen to our ground that would be planted in corn this year.  Once the nitrogen was applied we had our custom applicator come in and apply our other major crop nutrients phosphorus and potassium.  These are applied as small pellets that are spread over the field, and then when till them in to make them available for the crop.  We also had the custom guys spray our fields for weeds, because we had all the rain early the weeds were growing like crazy and we had to get them killed so they weren't competing with the crop.

Once we got all that stuff done the real fun started.  We first made a tillage pass with our vertical tillage tool, which is something that tills the soil to help to warm it up and make a good bed to plant the seeds in.  Once the tillage is done the planter comes along and places the seeds in rows and covers them with dirt so they can grow.  Once the seeds are planted we apply chemicals to take care of weeds which can rob the crop of nutrients, and water. 

The crop is in the ground, and we turn our attention to summer work, things like mowing roadside ditches, pastures, and barn lots on our farms.  Besides the mowing we spend time walking our fields looking for weed escapes, any disease problems or other things that will cause our crop problems.  It's this time of year that we start to market our crop to try and get the best price.

Besides all of our work this spring in summer, I have managed to squeeze in some time for fun as well.  We were able to take a week long vacation right after the 4th of July which was much needed, and a good way to recharge the batteries.  On the work front there have been a lot of changes lately.  I gave up my full time position with the seed company in favor of becoming an independent rep for them.  Long term it will be a much better situation, but in the short term it's going to take some adjustments.  We will survive though because that's what farm families do. 

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures in this post.  I had some really good ones on my phone, but a recent mishap with my IPhone and a lake have made those pictures history.  I hope that as we move on now I will have more time to keep all my readers updated on what's going on here at the farm, as well as being a much more active advocate for agriculture.  As always if you have any questions about our operation, or just agriculture in general don't hesitate to let me know. 
Thanks for reading.
-Brad_

Spring is coming

Well I realize that it has been a really long time since I posted something on here.  I know I said I was going to try and put up a new post once a month, but quite honestly it's been a pretty quiet winter here in our part of the world.  We made it through our first Christmas as a family of 3 which was way more fun than I thought it might be.  Little Madie finally got the hang of opening presents after about a week of doing it everyday.  We have lots of family gatherings so we stretch holidays out.  We also had Madie's first birthday party shortly after Christmas, but that was about all the got accomplished over the winter.

I guess I can't say that's all the got accomplished here on our farm over the winter, we have been keeping busy with some odds and ends projects.  I have been staying busy doing my least favorite job here on the farm, and that's all the book work that comes with managing the business side of things.  Yes that's right folks its not just till, plant and harvest we are running a business here so there's lots of time spent in front of the computer screen in the winter.  We had to get all the income and expenses to the accountant for tax purposes, then there is going over stuff trying to figure net profit per acre as well as expenses per acre.  I know exciting stuff right well for some it's probably not, but for me I like to look at these things and see where we can fine tune our operation. 

Winter in our world also means meeting season and our favorite farm shows.  Here are a few pictures from our annual trip to Louisville Ky for the National Farm Machinery show.

  As you can see we are pretty partial to red around this place.  These were the best pictures I could get with my IPhone that day.  The show in Louisville is the biggest indoor farm show with over 27 acres under 1 roof.  We do a lot of walking and see everything from our seed suppliers to equipment that we would have never thought of.

I hope to have another post very soon with some pictures from around our farmstead so you can get a visual for what our place looks like.  I'm hoping that mother nature will co-operate with some sunny weather so the pictures will turn out.

Just like with my last post here's a short list of some of the things we will be working on.
Servicing equipment(changing oil, lubricating and inspections)
Finalizing planting plans so we know which variety to plant in which field
Meeting with our fertilizer dealer to get our fertilizer and herbicide programs nailed down
Meeting with the banker to make sure we have a good budget in place for this year.

Just like normal if you have any questions please don't be afraid to ask, and I will do my best to answer them.  I can be reached at roberts_farms@hotmail.com.  Please feel free to share my blog with your friends, and family that might have some interest in hearing about the workings of one Indiana family farm, oh and today 3/19 is National Ag Day so make sure you remember all of us involved in American agriculture.
Thanks for reading
Brad