Both Sides of the Fork

     The dog ate my blog. Okay that isn’t exactly what happened, last week we were busy with bean harvest and the blog kind of slipped my mind. Oreo doesn’t look like a blog eater but does look guilty of something.        A few days ago Lisa and I took the opportunity to go and hear our son Cory’s fall concert at Dordt College.        He is a senior business major and was the original writer of this blog. I hope to be able to convince him to do a blog or two when he gets a chance, his writing is substantially better than mine.        I enjoy listening to college choirs and bands. These young men and women are participating because they want to and because they are good at it, not because their parents are making them.       We began soybean harvest last Tuesday and we're able to get a lot done with the dry weather we had most of the week. After a one inch rain Saturday night we wer...

     This past week was a little more routine. Rain the end of last week and again yesterday kept us out of the field for a while. Cory had a couple of days off from college but missed out on any field work due to the rain. He did volunteer to clean out the back of the truck we use to haul sows between places. After he shoveled out the “used” bedding he decided it needed a good power washing.       I am sure the sows appreciated it. Trent would like to do more power washing but it is a job that requires you to be well grounded. He may have to put on a few more pounds before he can do it.   He did take me up on my offer to let him sanitize the stalls after they were washed. We do this to get rid of any bad bugs that may still be around. It seems appropriate that he is wearing his skeleton shirt while eliminating bugs.       Monday the sun shone so we were able to get some harvesting done.    Yields continue to be be...

       If you’re not breaking anything you’re not doing anything. This is something my grandfather would say when someone had broken a piece of equipment. Breakdowns are just simply a part of farming. We sometimes find ourselves saying why does this always happen to us. Then you talk with other farmers and you find out they have probably had a similar experience.       Harvest had been going pretty smoothly until the beginning of this week.        The belt you see in the picture drives the feeder house and the head on the combine. When it breaks the head and feeder house stop immediately.        We were glad that Jacob could bring us a new belt to get us going again.                While breakdowns are common we do what we can to keep them to a minimum. I was glad Trent volunteered to grease the turbo-till.       ...