Finished Seeding June 1

Not bad considering. It could have been a lot sooner if things had worked out different. I ended up re-seeding one field. Those herbicide resistant wild oats staged a real come-back when the rain hit them right after seeding. Plus new ones came up. I went ahead and applied avadex to the small half of the field, quickly incorporated it with the field cultivator and then re-seeded to flax. I didn't have enough flax seed cleaned to do the big half over again so I opted for canola. Probably a  better choice anyway since that will give me at least two chances to spray out the wild oats with glyphosate (roundup). 6 operations on that field. Good grief! So much for low disturbance farming. Well seven if you count the rock picking but that was done pretty fast and furious so hardly counts.
Now I am hearing from the modern efficient farmers at Agriville that flea beatles and cutworms are running rampant in emerging canola fields. I have not checked and am almost afraid to look at mine. We escaped the frost warning a couple of nights ago.
In other news GMO roundup resistant wheat has been discovered in the U.S. state of Oregon. Although varieties were tested in the nineties , no GM wheat was ever approved for commercial production so it is a mystery where this came from. Its not good for the wheat market. More fuel for the anti GMO fanatics. Been there and done that a few years ago when the Triffid flax problem cropped up in 2010. It hurt our markets, price, and forced all flax growers to pay for an expensive gene test before they could sell their flax. It took a while but prices are back up now. I still would like to know just what is so harmful about genetically modified crops . I guess the bottom line is that the customer is always right, even when he his wrong.
Today being Sunday and somewhat of a day of rest I took it easy and listened to CBC Sunday Morning while picking rocks in relative ease and comfort.

This Weather

Its driving me crazy.. Late as it is I should be out planting oats today but the weather can't make up its mind if its going to really rain or just mist and drizzle all day. Do I head out for the other farm 9 miles away with a full air seeder to get caught in rain on the way there, find its too wet to seed anyway? Its the kind of rain that if I was already in the field I would keep working through the light showers but hate to start out on a long journey as uncertain as it looks.
Maybe its for the best. I'm hearing that the cold wet conditions are not good for the seed thats already in the ground. Not germinating, plant disease, etc. If it wasn't already June 3 I'd wait a bit but this is really late to be planting even oats. Farming is always a gamble, but this year maybe bigger than ever. Maybe I"m losing my memory but in 40 years of farming I don't recall such an exasperating spring before.
Unhappy Farmers
I took this picture on a rare sunny morning earlier this week. What is so rare as a sunny day in June in Saskatchewan?

New Year

Well, made it through Christmas and New years. No resolutions here though. Just keep on doing whatever seems to be working. We got lucky with weather over the holidays. No storms or bad roads although a little frosty. Actually had water dripping through my ceiling one cold morning. Turned out there is enough heat escaping through the ceiling and roof to melt the snow which then freezes at the lower edge of the roof backing up the water which then leaks under the metal sheets. I had to climb up on the roof and shovel about a ton of deep snow off to solve the problem.
I broke the bale spear on my front end loader lifting a hay bale today. Weak metal I guess as I doubt that the hydraulics on a 47 year old tractor lifting small round bales should over-stress a spear thats designed to lift any average round bale. I improvised with the remaining stub spears and a chain to get the hay bales out. Another project for the repair shop I guess.
This post was mainly intended to test if I can post those fancy blue links like the lazy farmer
Ok, I think I have it figured.

Dressed for winter, I spent an afternoon putting oats through the old hammer mill for cattle feed last week.