After dropping off Son's noisy, rumbly pickup, I rode with Husband to the implement dealership where the skid-loader will be repaired. I sat and waited......ho-hum.....hum-de-dum.....as Husband went inside to talk things over. I stupidly had forgotten to bring a book to read, but luckily, my trusty camera was along, so we caught a few colorful sights in the machinery lot.Below is the gauge-marker arm of a corn planter........it looked kind of pretty, actually.......sort of like a spring flower. This yellow "bloom" rolls along in the dirt, cutting a visible line for the tractor driver to follow each time across the field as the corn is planted.
We don't own a combine anymore, so I'm rather out-of-touch with the new trends in equipment for harvesting. I was surprised to see they are making corn heads out of PLASTIC now, as you can see below. I pointed it out to Husband and he said, "Oh, that's been around for several years now." Oh, my.......I'm out of it..JPG)
I love blue, so the tillage implement below caught my eye. I wonder how many tens of thousands of dollars this thing costs. It appears to be a new style field cultivator or one-pass field-prep implement, but I'm not sure. We have an old Landoll "one-pass" (that's what Husband calls it) which looks different than this, and is much smaller. "One-pass" means an implement which will allow the farmer to work the field just once before planting, which saves fuel and packing down of the soil. When I was a kid, a field would be moldboard-plowed, then disked once or twice, and dragged, before it was finally planted. That's alot of driving around in a field!
Hopefully, it won't be too long before farmers can get into their fields to till and plant. Everyone is getting antsy!
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2 comments:
I've always wondered how the rows of crops are so straight on a farm. When I cut the grass, my rows are pretty random. Does the yellow "bloom" thing have anything to do with that?
Other than field trips with my kids, I don't think I've ever been on a farm. When I read your blog, it's as though I've been dropped into another country. I never dreamed there was so much I didn't know :)
Hey, caution....you are a quick study! I had failed to clearly explain how that works. You're right, the farmer steers his tractor across the field driving on the line made by the gauge wheel (the yellow bloom thing). The farmer must be driving straight to begin with in order for the subsequent rows to be straight, of course!
Some farmers in our area are known for planting arrow straight rows, and others for having rows that wiggle and waggle a bit. At harvest time, it really doesn't matter much anyway.
I enjoyed your post on your blog about organic foods, etc. I wrote a comment last night, but when I clicked "publish", an error page came up and my comment disappeared. I was too tired to rewrite it. I always understand people's wishes to use organic products. I seldom buy "organic" produce because of the price and often it just doesn't look very good. I never buy milk or beef, of course, but if I did, I would be concerned about hormones and antibiotics.
We don't use hormones in our dairy operation. Antibiotics are sometimes necessary for udder infections....but the milk from a treated cow is thrown out until tests show no antibiotic residue remains.
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