~Spring is in the Air~

It is officially Spring! We are thankful to see more and more daylight every day around here and I think most of the family is recovered from the "Spring Forward" time change (I personally really dislike daylight savings time, it is hard on all of us in this house).

The guys have continued to be busy with cows and baby calves but births seem to be slowing down some and they have moved all of the cattle into the pasture and off of cornstalks so field preparations can begin.  Chris has enjoyed some nice long days with the tractor and disk getting the fields ready to start planting next month. In our area it is common to use "no-till" field practices to prevent soil erosion and maintain what little soil moisture we have. Basically what that means is that after we harvest we will leave the corn "stubble" or remaining stalks in the field and do not tear up the soil. Many times we would run a machine called a row stalker down the row to cut the old stalk and root ball out and be ready to plant right back into that row again. This year we have a few fields that need a little more tillage to get them ready for planting so the disk will be used to tear up the remaining rows completely. This allows the soil to absorb any spring moisture better and allows for the GPS in the tractor to plant straighter new rows and not attempt to travel in an older, possibly crooked row. Planting straight rows allows us to water more efficiently in our gravity irrigated fields and also allows more corn to be planted in the same space than just trying to drive a straight path like we did before we had GPS and auto steering capabilities.

The tractor and disk driving through a corn field.

The field before

The field after disking.

Close up of the remaining root ball from last years corn plant.

The view from the cab looking back over the disk and the seagulls that follow looking for worms and bugs. These birds will follow the tractor all day just for the easy meal. And you can also see in this picture the angle it takes to go across the rows to get optimal results.