Tree Is Gone

Did you ever have a tree in the middle of the field you had to drive around every year?  I had one and it is now gone, the tree is history.  Why kill a perfectly good tree?  It was in the way of tractor traffice and it had little value, even for firewood or shade.  It had seed pods on it and some big thorns and reddish wood inside but I am not sure what it was.

The picture shows the missed stalks as I had to drive the combine around it.  I hand husked the corn and gave it to the guy helping me to feed his critters.  I call livestock critters but a neighbor actually named his son Critter!  Is Jeff Foxworthy reading because we might have a redneck!

I am tickled how the spot looks now.  I sowed double passes of rye through the spot to help it get covered to stabilize the soil.  I don't know why I didn't do that the first year when we took out 1000 feet of fencerow only a 100 feet west of it.  I guess we just got tired and forgot about it and quit.  It's amazing how such a small project can give me so much satisfaction.

We also found the mysterious old clay tile under it and it started running again after we pieced in a section of solid tubing between the clay tile.  Water running through a tile is always a good thing!

We finished sowing rye on that farm yesterday so I once again have all my acres seeded to a cover crop!  That is quite an accomplishment for me.  The week's rain report from Bill Northcott showed why, too, we had zero rain at my locations in southwest Ohio last week.

A lot of farmers got finished with soybeans but there are still a few out there!  There are more acres of corn left to harvest but the number gets smaller every week.  I saw three farmers cutting their last soybeans within a few miles of where this picture was taken.

My crop adjustor showed up this morning very promptly.  I was 150 bushels short of a good APH on one farm so I get a small check.  I told him I would much rather have the APH as my yield for that field!  He laughed as he agreed.

He is from a small farm family east of here and I went to college with his Uncle Paul.  His dad suddenly passed away from an unknown heart ailment last year and it was very sad for everyone involved.  I am so blessed to have had my dad for 85.5 years.  LuAnn feels the same way about her's.

We are all praying for our friend Dutch who lost his son recently from a similar event.  He was doing what he loved, driving a John Deere pulling peanuts in West Texas.  I know Dutch and Katie are taking it very hard.  Some people never recover from an event like that but I pray they do.

We are getting rain on our new planted rye as another system blows through and fall adjusts to winter.  I hope it isn't a hard one but it is what it is.  I am so thankful we had last week to get so much done.

Ed