Monday, December 7, 2009

Ah, Winter!


The first snow arrived this morning, road is white, cornstalks are white. Pretty, I know, but a long way til "Ah, Spring!"


The best part of this area is the change of seasons. I guess that is why I never wandered too far from home. Sixty years in this part of the country!


The county salt truck just went by for the first time this winter. Visions of last winter just went through my head.


Mother Nature is getting the soil ready for another planting season without much help from us. We just sit back and watch and try to enjoy.


I need a picture of my rotting cornstalks with next years fertilizer applied versus the stalks where no fertilizer is applied.


The rotting stalks are turning dark and crumbly for a better break down. The untreated stalks are bright, glassy and shiny just like they came out of the combine weeks ago. Which one do you think will be better to plant into?


I know, I have been there these many years.


Sable and I just took another batch of Christmas Cards and invites to the Martinsville Post Office. The place is full of packages, people must really be shopping online! There are almost overwhelmed in that little building but they are managing it.


Since they closed down the Midland Post Office 5 miles to the west, the Martinsville office is almost overwhelmed with work. I guess that makes for efficiency and the lower cost we all demand but I know the older folks in Midland sure miss their Post Office.


USPS is really strong here, I don't see as much UPS and Fedex and of course DHL Express is gone.


At least we have our Post Office still and I have a big pile of dry firewood on the porch and two tons of wood pellets and 60,000 bu of corn to heat with so I can just sit back, think, plan, feed the stoves and enjoy.


Sable has been waiting on the mail lady now since she has been giving her doggy treats. One day she went to the truck to give her one and she wasn't there. Where is your dog? She is in her crate, Karen, she got into the garage and tore up the garbage again.


Tomorrow I hope to report on the Ohio NoTill Conference late in the day. I need to be in Plain City, Ohio before 10 and give my talk on cover crops and nutrients.


Dave Brandt, Steve Groff and I on a panel answering questions should be a hoot. We all three think and farm pretty much alike. The moderator emailed in a panic and said we will have a full house and may have to turn farmers away! Boy has that changed over the years and a good problem to have!


Ed

3 comments:

  1. For a month out of the year I wish I had a woodstove or a fireplace. I love the insulation value of our manufactured home-but... The old house was beautiful in the winter. When you pulled in the driveway you would see the yellow light spilling out the window onto the snow, and you smelled the woodsmoke, and you could stand next to a roaring wood fire, it seemed like you were toasty warm.
    But, when you got five feet away from the stove, or you woke up with the water glass next to your bed frozen solid, and you had to build a fire, Now that is a different subject.

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  2. Cost a mint but now we have both, good insulation, a beautiful old home and a toasty wood fire. Your old house sounds like the civil war era house on the home farm up til 58 when I would wake up with three comforts on me and snow on top. It was a race to the wood fire where you could see your breath. Some people have no idea what poor is.

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  3. now Ed, why do you consider that to have been "poor"? weren't your neighbors n the same boat?

    look at the health benefit value of such sleeping arrangements! joe

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