April 1st 2010 Things are really drying up quickly and the soil warms up more and more each day. A few people have already put in wheat. With it looking like an early spring the planting equipment is getting its final look over. Finished putting on the new harrow teeth on our 32ft cultivator. Also we purchased an 8inch by 24ft long Auger for loading the fertilizer spreader, this should shave 10-15 minutes off each fill and really improve productivity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 7th 2010 Spent the day in the excavator, first pushed back the manure lagoon to get the solids to flow to the center better, then switched to the rake and cleared about a mile of ditch banks to tidy up the farm a bit more. Didn't pile the brush just laid it down along the bank to be gathered up later by the D5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 10th 2010 Today was a big day! First day of spring tillage, we worked about 68ac of ground to go into spring wheat. The soil is very warm and dry, should be able to start corn planting before too long! Also moved the dozer to the farm as well as the rake to gather up the brush along the edge of the field. Managed to get all the trees into one big pile. No way it would have been possible to do that with just the excavator. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 12th 2010 Went over the spring wheat ground a second time in the morning, will likely try seeding tomorrow. Spent the rest of the day getting the 1990CCS drill prepped to do the seeding. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 13th 2010 Seeding Day! We had planned to put in 68ac of wheat this year. However the rate that we wanted, 1.8million seeds per acre was not physically possible with the white meter rolls in the drill. It maxed out at 1.6million seeds/ac so 75ac of wheat ended up being seeded, 68 conventional, and 9 notilled into soybean stubble. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 14th 2010 This was the day of the delivery truck! I think 5 or 6 came to the farm, the most interesting was the one that brought the 40ft cargo container dad purchased at the Toronto Farm Show. Should add a lot of well needed storage space to the farm. However like most spaces, it will fill up pretty quickly! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 20th 2010 Started spreading fertilizer today. The new auger worked extremely well. Filled the 8 tonne spreader in under 10 minutes! Fields are nice and dry and the ground temperature is quite warm. Several farmers in the area have already started planting corn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 21st 2010 Finally got some corn planted. Spite only getting going around noon we still managed to get 180ac planted with the 16 row. The 8 row still needs some wrenching before it is field ready. The 16 row worked very well with the new seed and fertilizer disks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 22nd 2010 Another good day of planting. Our TV-140 was in the shop this winter to have a wheel bearing fixed. However the dealer put in the seal improperly and while driving into the yard at the end of the day it went and the oil in the rear end started to leak out badly. A loaner TV-140 was brought out so we can continue to pick stones. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 23rd 2010 More of the same, put seed in planter, planter puts seed in the ground. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 26th 2010 Corn planting is going extremely well. About half done planting corn now but with a very peculiar weather forecast our good planting fortune might be changing. Oh well, sun is shining today so hard at it with both machines. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 27th 2010 SNOW!!! Quite a bit actually, several inches of wet fluffy snow. Didn't last long though, by late afternoon 90% of it was gone. There is also a progress photo of the wheat. It looks excellent! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 28th 2010 Snow is all gone, but the fields are still too damp to plant. I was getting pretty eager to try out the new skeleton bucket for the excavator so I crawled to a fence line the wood was removed from this winter and got all of the stones cleaned off it in a hurry. The bucket works exceptionally well! Should be dry enough to run the dump truck in the field tomorrow and haul them away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 29th 2010 Only a few fields were dry enough to plant so in the evening I hauled rocks with the dump truck to get a little more progress done on the driveway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 30th 2010 Back into corn planting full speed! Had another excellent day coming close to 300ac planted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------