Is There A Limit?

,,,to my stupidity? I doubt it some days. Hitching up to the sprayer the other day getting it ready to go and I could not get the hydraulic drive pump to turn. Tried various ideas and came to the conclusion it had seized up over winter, although its not an old pump. It was a long and difficult task disconnecting to various hoses and fittings so that I could get at the impeller with a socket to turn it. After fighting mosquitos and other hindrances I found that the impeller was free and easy turning.
Re-assembled the whole thing and tried again, still nothing. Patience long gone I somehow stumbled onto the realization that I had the hydraulic hoses plugged into the opposite circuit to the lever I had been working. An easy fix but I can't believe I could overlook the most basic possibility.Just too stupid.
Managed to get a field of canola sprayed, without GPS. The $3000 guidance system has become nothing more than a decoration as it quit working last week. No local places work on them and mailing it to the next province does not look like a good option right now with our Canada Post strike going on.
Guess I will have to depend on my aging eyes to tell where to drive in the field.

Grass continues to grow out of control in my yard as I have had not had time to spend on the lawn tractor. Yesterday evening with high hopes I made a start cutting but after a short time the front axle collapsed on the faithful old John Deere 111. Its looking like a big dis-assembly and welding job so I guess the grass will grow a while longer.
At least spring seeding is done and early crops are up and looking good. Fields have dried up considerably from the muddy mess we started with a month ago.

Worst Field Conditions in 40 Years

Or maybe more than 40 years.
It just keeps getting wetter. Another 2 inches the past week and only a little drying over the weekend. Now this week begins with clouds and threat of more rain.
This photo from 07 shows how bad it was then. None of that water was there in 89 when I started farming the land. This photo shows only a small portion of a slough that stretches over a half a mile long.
It might seem strange to complain about too much water in dryland Sask. but this year that is what we are doing. There are parts of that canola field that are now inaccessible. The quarter originally had 125 cultivated acres on it. This spring I was barely able to seed 90 acres. It has been gradually losing acres due to the ever-expanding sloughs that have nowhere to go except into the next slough.
Water is now running in off the neighbour's field. Nobody's fault, just gravity and natural drainage. Unfortunately this farm has no outlet for the water so it will continue to build up unless our weather patterns change back to dry.
Sask harvest statistics state we are about 13% complete. Normally at this date we would be more like 35% finished.
On the positive side, no worries of field fires, too wet for grasshoppers, can't think of much else at this point.

Sick Of The Rain

I am so sick of rain, and mud. I have literally stood in the field (or
sat in my cab) and cursed the rain and the mud that results from it.
In nearly 40 years of farming I don't recall a year so wet. Water levels
in the fields have been rising since the end of April. To the point that
some of the acres we struggled to seed in the mud will now be impossible
to harvest.
I know the old song goes, "the farmer needs the rain" but this is
ridiculous. The excess rain has caused us no end of problems and frustration.
Crop development has been slow but some are finally ready to harvest.
Unfortunately it rains every few days and just about the time the crop
is dry enough to try a sample, another system moves in with rain.
With all the moisture in the system the ground and grass stay wet til late
morning so the combines will not be able to get an early start. Days
are getting shorter and the sun sets early which usually means the grass
(and crop) takes on moisture so we can't combine late either.
Statistically we are about 8% harvested but in a normal year we should
be at the 28% level already. Peas normally harvested the first week of
August are still standing(or laying) in the fields. Every day and every
drop of rain degrades their quality further.
On the positive side, cattle have more grass than they can eat and I have
not had to water the lawn or garden all summer.
In hindsight I guess summerfallowing some of my land was a mistake as
most of it is too wet to work properly, but who knew this was coming
back in April?
Took this photo a week ago on a rare sunny day trying to disk summerfallow.
Yes, the tractor is stuck in the mud.

Make Hay While The Sun Shines

Its an old expression my Dad often used and today I took it literally. We have had a few days without rain and I swathed some hay on Saturday. Drying well on the surface but underneath the hay was still green and damp so today I used the wheel rake to turn all the swaths over.
Working on my grandfathers farm I often think of the differences in how I make hay and how he used to do it. While I might complain about the mosquitos I realize it used to be a lot worse. A team of horses on an old ground drive mower cutting maybe 6 feet. A steel seat that must have been extremely uncomfortable and left a long lasting impression on your backside.
They would also use a horse powered rake to gather the hay into rows, then out with the pitchforks to "coil" the hay into small , weatherproof stacks to dry further.
Some days later they'd head back to the field with wagons (hayracks) and horses to load the hay on and haul it to the yard to stack for winter's use. They were some tough individuals to endure the long hot days in the hayfields each summer.
Tomorrow I will sit in the air conditioned cab listening to CBC talk radio while I roll up hay into round bales that can then be loaded by front end loader onto a trailer for the long (5 miles) drive home. We have come a long way in the way we handle hay.

Black Skies, Green and Yellow Fields

No surprise here, it rained again today. The black sky in the photo was indicative of the thunderstorm approaching. Listening to the radio reports of a state of emergency in NorthBattleford after this afternoon's torrential rain and hail storm had me a little concerned that we were in for some of the same.
It turned out to be only a brief rain shower. Still enough to send me home from the field. This summerfallow was too wet for good working even before it rained. I figured with a little tillage I could maybe help dry up the surface at
least. With chem fallow there is no weed growth to take up the excess moisture so the fields do not dry much and could still be un-seedable by next spring.
In hindsight I should probably have seeded some kind of crop on all the chem fallow and take whatever grows. With all the violent storms around this summer I'm starting to think my best investment might be additional hail insurance

Theres A Storm Across The Valley

With apologies to John Denver for borrowing that line from his song, "Rocky Mountain High", this was the scene out of my office window yesterday about 5:30.
ITs one of the benefits of this line of work that I get a constantly changing view through those windows in the cab of my big red tractor. Yesterday's dark Western sky made a nice backdrop for the special bright green shade that the poplar leaves show for their first stage of opening. The new worked black soil beside the weathered stubble of last year's canola crop. Its one of the many reasons I never get bored with this farming business (or lifestyle).
Its been a series of starts and stops trying to get the anhydrous applied in preparation for seeding the crop. Its a week ago today that I started and I should be finished with that job by now but recurring rain and snow days have stalled me twice now. Close to an inch of rain on the weekend and now another half inch last night.
Its true, rain is so necessary to produce a crop but first we have to get that crop planted. And there is a limited "window of opportunity" to get that job done. Most crops need around 100 days of frost free weather to reach maturity so we like to get them in the ground by the end of May so they will be ready to harvest in September.
The rain will surely make the grass grow which will keep the cattle (and me) happy for the summer.