I Remember This

Or at least I think I do. Its a little piece of history retained on the driver's door post of the 52 Mercury. In those days when many owners did their own engine oil changes they would (usually) mark down the mileage and date on the sticker that came with the new oil filter. This one from Atlas filters is marked 1967, July something. That scrawled pencil hand writing is my own I think.

It looks like Dad was using BA (later Gulf oil) 10w-30 oil at that time. No mileage recorded so I'm guessing the speedometer had already quit working by that time.
Its been a week of threatening thunderstorms every day and yet not very much rain. So it keeps me on hold putting off hay cutting , etc. I did manage to get a couple of fields of chem fallow sprayed. They needed it. Flax hauling was scheduled but put off due to threat of rain. You really don't want rain when loading flax as it turns to glue and sticks to the inside of the truck box sides.
It was a very quiet evening with no wind and hardly a sound except the birds and the occasional distant whine of a plane or sprayer working on crops. They are going all out pouring on the fungicide or insecticide (or both) on canola and cereal crops now.

I did disturb the silence a bit with the rumble of the straight pipe on the Mercury flathead V8 for a short drive. Got to keep those valves exercised so they don't stick. 

Not Quite Fateful Eighth

Well last week's post about the fateful eighth almost came true for some. We missed the worst of it here but south country got some major wind and hail damage. The power was off all night over a large area, including me. About the worst effect here was that the 3 tenths of rain made the gravel roads muddy enough that I didn't want to take my "antique"  IH truck to the museum show and park beside the rest of the real antiques. I drove the "all weather ' Blazer to get there and it was a good sunny afternoon of looking at the classics.

The next two days I was able to get a second application on the chem fallow. Long overdue but still the ground ranged from wet to mud to water as I dragged the sprayer through the field. Dust was non existent. The sloughs have definitely expanded a bit from the last time I was out there in early June. Seems I am getting to be a smaller farmer every year lately. Some places I can barely get through between sloughs with my small and out dated 60 foot sprayer. Not sure how I would deal with it pulling 90 feet but try finding a new 60 foot sprayer!

Hot and humid "jungle weather" the last  few days are pushing the late crop along to maturity. Might be time to get the swather ready to roll. First thing to check, is the AC working?
In other news it was a wild ride for the lazy farmer recently when a mechanical/hydraulic failure almost caused disaster.

Anniversary of D Day (and a good day to spray)

Yesterday,, June 6th was the anniversary of D Day when the allied forces hit the beaches of Normandy in 1944. My dad missed out on that by about a month. Long time readers of this blog (are there any?) might recall reading an excerpt from dad's Memories of WWII that I published here back in 08.
As the title to this post indicates, today, June 7 was a great for crop spraying. About the best I have seen in long time. Not too hot, windy or wet. When conditions are that good I really need to take advantage. In spite of a late start I did get a couple of hundred acres sprayed. Finished up the chem fallow and about 130 acres of canola sprayed. Not bad considering I had a good 20 miles of road transport (at 13 mph) plus the usual time spent pumping water and mixing chemical. Say what you will about Monsanto's GM canola but it sure makes weed control a breeze. Cheap effective herbicide (roundup) and a very wide window of application takes a lot of the stress out of spraying crops.
More by luck than good management I managed to finish up with just enough chemical on the chem fallow. The sprayer tank ran empty within a minute of finishing the field.
How I wish I had spent a day this spring harrowing, piling and burning the residual flax straw on the canola field. It is unbelieveble how hard those lumps of straw can be. The roughly 15,000 pound tractor bounces over those straw lumps like a cork on the ocean and the driver (me) does likewise. It makes for a tiring day and a resolution to not let this happen again next year.
The canola is emerging as good as any year I can ever remember in spite of the rather dry conditions.

This photo from a couple of days ago was taken as I had just finished a 40 acre chem fallow field. It is pure luck that this picture survived. It was on the card inside the camera that got lost in a stubble field today. I was going to take a picture at "The Poplars" of the lilacs that were blooming and discovered the pocket I always carry the little Canon Elph in was empty. Guess I forgot to snap the pocket closed and the camera fell out. That could have ruined a perfect day. My best guess was that it had fallen out when I crawled under the sprayer to drain the tank after finishing chem fallow. After a bit of walking around sure enough, the little black rectangle was laying there on the straw. The transport wheels of the sprayer had just missed running over it.
Storm clouds gathered in the west and the wind increased as I finished up the last 40 acres of canola. Might get a break from spraying tomorrow.