Planting Time

It is planting time but many farmers can't plant!

The ground here is dry enough to plant but the threat of rain each day is keeping planters out of the fields.

I wrote about faith yesterday and it takes great faith to borrow money and plant a crop knowing you will get back more than you put in. It is taking great faith to do that this year!

It takes great patience to wait and do it right so your faith is fully excericized. Farmers are having their faith and patience tested right now.

One good thing that happened along the way is the market seemed to have turned direction and posted good gains Wednesday. Hopefully the fear of pandemic and failing economies will be over ridden by the need for our harvest. We really need to lock in a profit on this new crop.

I was surprised to see no planters planting Wednesday and even saw some neighbors chisel plowing a wet farm. Spraying is being done every time the wind dies down and that has only been early morning and late evening at best.

This long winter just hasn't wanted to let go and every time a wind blows up you can feel the cold of the north as the warmth of the Gulf tries to over ride it. The result is little planting progress in Ohio and I am sure many other places, too.

Now is the time to excercize that great faith and patience a farmer needs to survive. It seems like we have planned each detail to the point we can make a little change when that opportunity arises. Just getting the seed in the ground and fed and the weeds controlled is a big challenge this year.

Next Month I am sure we will be looking at a whole new set of challenges!

I hope we are up to those challenges!

Ed Winkle

What is faith?

What is faith?

I excercize my faith every time I plant a seed, whether it is a corn seed that will prosper and be reaped as a beautiful harvest or an idea or suggestion I give to another person.

Faith for me came when I was a child and searched my reason for being. I read and thought and talked about it and prayed and thought some more before being baptized.

Faith is a deep understanding that God created this world and my reason for being is because of God’s love for me to be brought into this world.

As everyone has, my faith has been tested many times but thankfully it hasn’t been weakened but only strengthened.

When you are little you have faith your parents will take care of your needs. As your body and mind grows it is natural to search why you are here so you can grow and make plans for your life.

We get a lot of help and hindrances along that path but one day the light comes on and you KNOW why you are here and what you are to do about it. I pray for the person who never find this deep belief for them which is the foundation of faith.

Faith is one of the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church points these out clearly;

“Faith

1814 Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God."78 For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God's will. "The righteous shall live by faith." Living faith "work[s] through charity."79

1815 The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it.80 But "faith apart from works is dead":81 when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.

1816 The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live on it, but also profess it, confidently bear witness to it, and spread it: "All however must be prepared to confess Christ before men and to follow him along the way of the Cross, amidst the persecutions which the Church never lacks."82 Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation: "So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven."83

At this point in my life it is easy for me to believe this and try to practice it every hour of my existence. Some people make this belief very difficult but for me it is so easy.

I can’t and don’t want to imagine where I would be without my faith

Five Short Years

I was thinking last night as Sable and I made our late evening walk around the farmstead what has happened here in five short years.

Here is the list I came up with:

In five short years, we have:

Moved to this farm
Repaired the drain tile
Painted all the buildings and bins
Repaved and gravelled all the driveways
Remodeled the house
Installed a Vermont Defiant woodstove and a Countryside corn burner
Improved the landscape with new bushes and plants and plant beds
Started a vegetable garden
Rewired and remodeled the grain system and part of the house and all the barns
Planted 9 crops(we are cover cropping double-croppers)
Restored the old remaining barn
Survived a tornado which destroyed the garage and damaged every buiding on the farm.
Survived severe ice storms that took down trees and gutters.
Survived an inland hurricane which destroyed some of the farmstead
Replaced or repaired all of the barn doors

Whew, that is a lot in five short years!

The best part is we have been blessed to thoroughly enjoy the company of six children, four grandchildren, and numerous neighbors and friends from across the country on this place in those five short years!

The only thing I would have done differently is considered more strongly the razing of the old barn and putting a new shop in its place. I could have built a heated and insulated, modern shop that looks like the old barn in its place.

I just couldn't stand the thought of tearing down the old structure and now we have a building with lots of investment that could have been better used in a new structure. I guess I just wasn't ready to do it and now we have enough invested in a beautiful old barn that would make us more money if it were a modern shop.

Repairs are big ticket items in an operation like ours but I never dreamed our acreage would have expanded so much in five short years, either.

Hindsight is 20-20 and I couldn't see it coming in my "retirement years." I guess I wasn't ready to "retire" but do what I actually wanted to do all my life and that is to farm. I just didn't see it turning out this way.

Of course if I looked back only ten years ago I wouldn't have seen any of this coming!

Isn't life amazing?

Ed

PGD

PGD is my abbreviation for a pretty good day. I started off with phone calls and email and chores around here then went to mom's to take her to the dentist. The big day is one month from now, won't be fun for her or me.

I got home in time to finish off the pork roast I had cooking and LuAnn added some garden vegetables and brown long grain rice. It was very tasty! We have this knack after all these years of throwing something together and it was every bit as good as the meal before.

I don't have a sprayer yet so still depend on the custom applicators. Low and behold in came Allen White on a local spray rig, a Rogator 1084 and laid down 30 gallons of 28% nitrogen, a quart of Gramoxone, 2 lbs of atrazine and 5 ounces of Corvus herbicide on our test plot.

It drizzled most of the afternoon but was pretty well dry by the time he got here. I was very impressed how this once Warren County 4-H'er used the GPS on that rig to spray my field to the "tee." I am going to email his boss, he was very particular and I think he did the best job he could have given the conditions he was working with.

Then we got into the old red Dodge Dakota to harrass some grandkids but couldn't find anyone at home. Liam was with mom somewhere and Madison and Brynn were still probably at soccer but we had fun on the road trip anyhow.

I mowed a little, put the battery charger on the Grand Prix I had intended to use to take mom to the dentist with and now it is nearly dark and I am writing this.

We are still looking for dry ground to plant into so that takes a lot of the day but all in all it was a pretty good day.

I see corn and wheat came up a little but beans were down 15 cents. The markets are still shaky from the flu news. I think beans will come back before they hit bottom this fall but who knows. I need to price this new crop for a possible profit.

I took some pictures of Allen spraying but haven't uploaded them yet. Maybe I have a couple of older pictures of this field being sprayed.

How was your day?

Ed Winkle

Started Planting

It is very tacky here to plant like I read from my friends in central Illinois. We planted enough to know it is wet. It has been too cool to break down much residue and there are very few weeds, reflecting the hard winter we had. It is too windy to spray if you did plant.

I wouldn't want to risk many acres at this point, two sweet corn plantings have been failures for me. If I plant more today it could turn out the same way even with the heat and wind we have had this weekend. It is just too cold and damp underneath no matter how you plant.

It is still good for nursery plantings and the new plants seem to be taking off well. That forecast seems to continue which is great for nursery plants but not good for heat loving crops like corn.

Sweet corn growers have shared with me their failures too, plastic is a must in these conditions and many growers are like gardeners, they are not set up to plant in plastic film.

Everything will have to be evaluated on a field by field basis and nothing is what I call good planting conditions yet. I have examined many fields in the region over the weekend and it is hard to broadcast fertilizer without cutting a rut somewhere in a field as I said, too windy to do much spraying.

So if you did get anything planted, how are you going to get it sprayed?

I think the swine flu breakout was a big player in the overnight markets. Grains were down. There is much nervousness from the fields in the Midwest to the Marketplace.

The weather forecast looks like potential for lots of moisture this week which will make things worse, not better.

The joys of farming!

I hope things are better your direction because they aren't very good here.

Ed

Pandemic?

I wanted to write something cheerful today but the news took this thought formost from my mind. I hope it is just "stinking thinking." Not good for a Sunday!

The potential of a pandemic was really in the news a few years ago with the Asian flu virus. Fortunately it did not spread as feared. Let's hope the same for the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and now the United States.

"SUNDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- Mexican authorities continued to take dramatic steps over the weekend to try to contain the swine flu outbreak that officials say has killed as many as 81 people, and sickened more than 1,300 others.

In the United States, two new cases were reported Saturday by health officials in Kansas, as well as a new case in California, bringing the national total to 11, according to the Associated Press. Eight more cases of "probable" swine flu involving school students have been identified by New York City health officials. Cases in the U.S. have so far remained mild.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Interim Deputy Director for Science and Public Health Program, told reporters on Saturday that her agency was "worried, and because we are worried we are acting aggressively on a number of fronts" to investigate the outbreak. She added that, because of the wide geographic spread of the virus so far, the outbreak is already "beyond containment."

I haven't studied this so I don't know what to make of it. If you have, I would appreciate you sharing with us.

It caught my eye on the news before bed last night so I thought I would share it. I don't believe many of us are prepared for a pandemic. I know the United States and the WHO aren't and that is why some of them are concerned.

I only know what I hear and read and have time to sort out, so much is misinformation or doesn't apply to us.

I hope and pray this is another one of those things.

Blessings on Sunday,

Ed Winkle

Potash

One of the guys posted this on AgTalk and it shows what farmers deal with every day. Last year it was diesel fuel plus seed and fertilizer costs, this year our problem is potash priced over our ability to buy much of it at today's market prices.

"SASKATOON: The world is setting itself up for a hungry future as farmers play ``a dangerous game'' by skimping on fertilizer, the chief executive of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (TSX:POT) said Thursday after a ``terrible'' first quarter in which sales fell by more than half from a year ago.

The market will turn quickly, Bill Doyle predicted after the world's biggest fertilizer producer, reporting in U.S. dollars, said quarterly earnings withered to $308.3 million or $1.02 per share.

This was down 46 per cent from a bonanza year-ago profit of $566 million or $1.74 per share. The latest quarter's net income would have been lower by another $166.8 million if not for beneficial tax adjustments.

Sales shrivelled to $922.5 million from $1.89 billion, but ``we've got the pain largely behind us,'' Doyle told a conference call.

``While economic conditions have been the focus for most people in recent months, the world's attention must return to the science of food production,'' he declared.

``A year ago, concerns over world food shortages were headline news, and little has changed to alleviate the pressure on the food supply.''

Southern-hemisphere farmers in Argentina and Brazil are producing ``a bad start to the global crop year'' as a result of lower fertilizer applications, and after record world grain production in 2007 and 2008, ``the year 2009 could be a completely different story,'' he said.

``You could see dramatically higher grain prices going into this fall.'' (The market isn't bidding that way, sir!)

Beyond then, he predicted, potash demand will blossom, ``leading us to an exceptional 2010.''

But in the meantime, after taking 39 mine shutdown weeks in the first quarter, ``we will continue to reduce production by as many tonnes as it takes'' to stabilize prices.

Management also plans no major new capital expenditures until prices rise, he said, though projects underway in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick will continue, expected to cost C$7 billion and expand PotashCorp's capacity to 18 million tonnes in 2014.

``A dangerous game is now unfolding around the world,'' Doyle told analysts.

``Fertilizer applications are being reduced at unprecedented levels, with our estimates for North American potash applications falling as much as 30 to 35 per cent'' _ back to levels of the early 1980s while demand has risen 90 per cent, powered by nutrient-intensive corn.

``This level of reduction has never been seen before,'' Doyle said. ``No one can state precisely what the impact will be on the world's food supply, immediately or over the longer term. But we know with scientific certainty that nutrient underapplication damages both crop yields and quality.''

He added that the reduction in fertilizer use ``is more about psychology than economics,'' as global grain inventories remain tight and farmer returns are well above historical averages.

PotashCorp expects second-quarter earnings per share of $1.10 to $1.50, and its full-year EPS outlook has been cut to between $7 and $8, from $10 to $12 three months ago, to reflect the ``extremely slow'' first half.

Potassium or "K" as we call it is an important macronutrient farmers apply of the 17 nutrients crops need for healthy crops. Farmers have really backed off potassium purchases this year as it is $800 a ton here in southwest Ohio and that high just about everywhere.

This move by Potash Corp has put them and us in a risky situation but farmers can't buy what the balance sheet won't allow them to. We are learning how to get by with less potash and how to release more of it in our soils with good lime programs and cover crops that release phosphorus and potassium.

I share this to point out what the farmer goes through every year whether it is tech fees for genetically modified seeds or in this case, potash we use to fertilize our crops.

The "rules" are really against the little guy right now! The farmer is one of the few businessmen I know who pay retail for everything we buy and sell wholesale everything he sells and expected to deliver it 40 miles away to get it!

Ed