UPS

Too bad DHL didn't stay in business in Clinton County.  I think they would have been OK in the US market.  I think UPS is overwhelmed.

DHL's move to Clinton County turned out to be disasterous.  I think it did more harm than good but I didn't work there 25 years like Les did so I would have to ask him.  It's hard to believe when I drive by that multi billion dollar world airport sitting nearly empty.  There are so many out of work but DHL had trouble finding enough dependable people.  It's all a sign of a sick society.  UPS seems to be a different story.  I wonder why?

We order lots of things online so their truck is here almost every day, sometimes more than once.  Today I felt sorry for a new kid handed a truck with 150 packages and a county road map.  He asked where Mad River Road is and I said 7 miles to the east and told him how to get there.  Then he asked where McK road was and I said spell it.  McKibben Road, well that is 3 miles west of me.  He said he was time limited and I told him I wish I had time to ride with him, we would knock his load out.  He laughed.

This morning neighbor Neil called to ask for the Newman's phone number.  He wanted them to see the sandhill cranes migrating our way if they were interested.  I need to introduce them to each other, its been years and time just creeps away.  We don't even know our own neighbors.

I work pretty hard at it but I fail, too.  I really wanted to get know Harry Ertel(this is LuAnn's picture of his old windmill where we were just standing so she could take a picture of the sandhill cranes) where the Newman's now live.  I was so busy getting this farm in order I looked across the street one day and the yard was full of cars.  Harry had passed away.  I think it was 04 or 05.  Now my aunt Jane has passed and I haven't seen her since her 90th birthday party nearly a year ago.  I guess I am no better but it doesn't seem like a year ago.

We will go to the city for her services tomorrow and start another busy week.  I don't know how much I can get done before we leave for New Zealand and Australia but there are things I must do!  I must put a check in the hands of a new trucker and lime spreader I haven't used and a check in the hands of a fertilizer vendor.  I can't farm without those materials.

Yesterday a Don Effren called me out of the blue to tell me about his new remote control heliocopter that flies over your field by GPS and takes 4 different kinds of pictures you download after the flight and look at your crop from pictures from visual to UV to NGIV.  It looks very promising to me.  I try to send the files that crept through the Frontier server and remind myself I must get on Road Runner cable.  It's lying outside our frontroom window.

I come up with this new idea of what it feels like in my corn field all season.  I name it Living In Your Fields and I envision camping in a tent with Liam and Corbin and taking temperatures of crop canopy, soil, BRIX readings, all kinds of informational things.  Smelling and touching and feeling and experiencing what a plant does though I am not a plant.  I am the steward of that plant.

Pretty crazy, isn't it?

Ed

NNTC

LuAnn is OK, thanks for asking.  She was doing her Wii Fit like a champion last night. We had an expensive day yesterday.  The deer crash, my tire slipped on the ice and I mashed our little AC unit outside the porch with Old Red.  Then, I fell getting wood pellets into the house.  I saw the black ice and thought it was melted.  My feet were quickly level with my head.  I first thought there goes the trip, I layed there and hurt so bad.  I move a little, no, I don't think my left hip is broken.  I moved a little more, I don't think my left arm is broken.  In an hour I was feeling much better but 6 feet of 200 lbs plus hits the concrete hard.

Amongst the calamity yesterday Darrell Bruggrink calls from NoTill Farmer calls and we talk about the car crash.  They have that too in Wisconsin but turkeys are worse!  He tells me Kris Nichols is ill and she can't speak.  Dang, I was wanting to hear that Top 40 Under 40 speaker I recommended on microbiology of our soil.  Ed, can you take her place?

I said let's pray for her health.  I reminded him of my ordeal 2 years ago and he agrees on health and prayer.  Then we discussed topics and he said you have spoken on soybeans at the conference in the past, could you talk soybeans?  I said how about What's New In High Yield Soybeans?  I knew he would like that fancy wording and went with it.

I shook up NNTC in 2000 when I accepted my NoTill Farmer of the Year Award sponsored by Syngenta.  I showed them how I modified my old White 5100 planter with the Martin system and used lime, gypsum, fertilizer and biological farming to increase my farming at age 50.  We started NewAgTalk about the same time so we have all grown together(and apart.)

So I post my question to my trusted friends(and enemies) on Crop Talk.  I got excellent answers, just what I was thinking.  Take a minute and read these responses, there is a young guy replying I would like to see get more active on Crop Talk.  Can you pick him out?  His profile says he only had 34 posts when I looked for his name.

Then another young man asked about renting "a bunch of patches" like so many of us have done.  I replied to it.  I am pretty happy with my response to him, too.  I've got my confidence back thanks to Leon in Hawaii, Phred, Farmerrob, Southernokie and others.  Then I read a post about farm planning by my friend Paul up north and I feel even better.

Back to these high yielding soybeans, I have a good outline and comments in the links.  Do you have any others?  Somehow I've got to get my listeners thinking how to add a little calcium each year, balance their nutrients and treat soybeans as their top crop, not the "red headed stepchild."  Cover crops, biology, humates all fit in here somewhere but I know right now weed control is my first issue.  Weeds are eating everyone's lunch.

Ed

A Deer Hit My Car!

This is not my truck or LuAnn's car but the title is the call I got this morning soon after LuAnn headed east for Hillsboro.  We sure didn't expect that today!  I told her to come home and get my Dakota and she thought I said stay there and call the patrol.  After many hours passed it seemed and after many unanswered calls she called back and said I don't think they are coming, bring the truck and you can take the car home.

The state patrol finally showed up and she said the officer was great and sympathetic.  He said they are getting record calls on deer accidents right now.  I took the car to our lifelong friend Jason Tussey at Tussey Collision and Frame and he says the same thing.  He is backed up too.  He asked why we wouldn't space these out better?

It's funny, I just saw how this topic was my number one all time read blog.  Little has changed but the day and the year!  I would say she hit a 2-300 pounder right in the center of her left headlight, it swung it around and broke the heavy plastic wheel cover, the butt hit the door hard enough it leaks air now.  The front end shimmied noticeably on the way to the body shop.  LuAnn is a very good driver and had the reflexes to miss another potentially fatal accident.

I told Jason he has us well trained.  LuAnn picked up a handful of fur for evidence off the side of the road and put it in the cupholder.  He laughed on that one, we have a family story about a supposed deer accident with no evidence and a dog with fur that looks like a deer!  I forgot to ask but I bet it pushes $3000 for a claim.  It even broke our new $20 coffee mug and I have a story about that too!

The day LuAnn almost got hit head on took out the right headlight and today's deer took out the left one.  The deer cost farmers millions in crop damage and drivers millions in insurance claims.  It could have potentially killed her if it would have come through the windshield and the Rendezvous is built perfectly for that!

So I publicly thank her Guardian Angel, yes we believe in Saints and Angels as they help us every day.  We both laughed too bad it didn't happen to Old Red, my oldest Dakota but it would have really had to have been a bad day for her to be driving that thing!  It hit the newest vehicle in our fleet so we will just grab another vehicle and go.

We are blessed like that.

Ed

Early

We have been sleeping in and enjoying the holidays.  I told myself I need to get up at 6 this morning but I had a disconnect there somewhere, I woke up earlier than that!  Don't you hate it when that happens?  I have slept in enough this month to kind of enjoy this out of routine happening.

I used to be able to wake up when I wanted to but in my later years it doesn't seem to work as well.  It still works, just not as often and like today, I can be off a couple of hours either way!  I have slept well the last 21 months though since I gave my will to God.

The early bird catches the worm you know, but the worms are safe and snug deep in the soil.  We will get into earthworm habitat next week at the National NoTillage Conference in Indianapolis.  Odette Menard, who brought a bus load of farmers here a few years ago will be speaking about earthworms.  I haven't listened to a good lecture on earthworms for some time so it will be good to get some updated information.

I have one friend who says his worm population has changed since his yield producing levels have went up.  He still has nightcrawlers but he doesn't see the many species of red and other worms he used to see.  I don't understand that relationship, either.  If you start reading this one simple link, you will see we could have a long discussion just on one topic to be presented next week.

I need to go talk to grain merchant, banker and lime spreader so I will finish this later.  I don't want to have a bad day like this fellow:

Ed

Thanks

I thank all of my readers today for getting me through another year!  I do this as much for myself as anyone but you folks keep me going when the going gets rough or beautiful!  Thanks for the email, cards, letters and pictures.  It is all greatly appreciated!

It's good to know I have friends all over the world keeping track of me.  I didn't make it to midnight last night but LuAnn awoke me with Happy New Year at the end of the guns shooting up and down the road.

We enjoyed the Rose Bowl parade coverage this morning.  RFD has really livened up that parade the last six years!  I really liked the big Oliver pulling the beautiful RFD float this year.  The FFA float was special a couple of years ago but they have all been great.  The Rose Bowl Parade is on our bucket list but I kind of hope the Buckeyes are never the reason we are there to see it!  The Buckeyes would not be favored by Standford.

A young friend called yesterday and asked me about the fertilizer price email I sent out.  He was trying to price fertilizer for next year and we talked about the best price and getting what you pay for.  This is where economy of size can be important and not having to rely on the local dealer for all your needs!

"As we end 2012, fertilizer prices are steady with the past few weeks, but 15-40 dollars cheaper than the Aug.-Sept. prices. I think these lower prices reflect the lack of interest on the farm and the lack of fert. movement due to this summers drought. Prices are the same as last week.

28 325
pot 480
dap 520
map 540
urea 445
62% and 10-34-0 prices are available upon request."

This email got his attention and many others as they price their fertilizer needs for 2013.  It looks like most of the midwest is counting what they spread last year never got used in the drought because fertilizer isn't moving.

I will have some needs and can use everything in that list this year.  Mainly I am thankful for everything I have and not geared up to do much right now.  My wheat will have the first needs but every acre needs something on it right now and this frozen ground with melting snow on it would be ideal to spread lime, gypsum or fertilizer.

"You can't grow it if you don't put it on!"  At least at not the yield levels I am shooting for!  I want my crop roots to look like the pictures in yesterday's blog, not these of a neighbor's corn roots taken in July!

Happy New Year and many more to you and yours and all of us.

Sincerely,

Ed Winkle

New Year's Eve

2012 is all but history.  How was your year?  Ours was tough but not as bad as my friends in Missouri and southern Illinois.  Remember those posts about the corn crop dying?  Ours tried to die 3 times I can remember but it never gave up the ghost.  It produced a decent yield.

I did a lot of things I could have done better.  In my book I did them wrong.  Few farmers were ready to plant when Mother Nature our earliest good planting date in my lifetime.  I was one of them.  In hindisght I wish I had planted everything the week of March 18.  It seemed crazy but that's the kind of year we had.  Crazy, just plain crazy was the year of 2012.

I should have done a better job controlling weeds.  I didn't know it the day I sprayed but I should have used a higher rate of Corvus and atrazine or Harness Extra instead.  I should have gotten all of my corn sprayed again early with 2-3 ounces of Capreno when there were few weeds and they were small.  I knew better, I planned better, Ijust didn't get the job done.  5 ounces of Corvus and a pound of atrazine or a full rate of Harness Extra should have been put down pre-emerge after planting.

If I didn't plant that week I should have put anhydrous ammonia down preplant.  Those were the best looking fields I saw all summer and it's the way I've raised my best corn.  My helpers didn't want to do that and I shouldn't have listened to them.  Instead I bought my 28 a week too late and paid out the nose for watered down urea ammonium nitrate.  The 28 I bought tested 25% nitrogen and the 32 they billed me for tested 28.  Liquid fertilizer is an opportune business for the seller.  I know no way they can water down 82% anhydrous ammonia but I am sure someone has figured out a way.

Ideally I would have put 15 gallons of 28 and 5 gallons of ammonium thiosulfate on one side of the row and 2 gallons of calcium nitrate mixed in 8 gallons of water on the other side of the row.  That is absolutely the best corn I have seen anywhere but I could have come close with ammonia acting on my high calcium lime. 

Wheat was bumper crop in this region and so were soybeans.  All you had to do was plant them on time and take care of them.  They didn't require a lot of management for a good yield like corn did.  We should treat all crops as good as our corn.  We would be more profitable.

It's hard to get it all done!  I set high goals every year and it's great to meet them.  This year I feel I left 20 bushel or more on the table.  Mother Nature caught me off guard all summer.

I have a good start on 2013.  I might have the best looking wheat I ever had at this date.  It's six months to harvest though and plenty of time for errors or poor timing!

I just hope 2013 is not quite as challening as this year was.  It tested me to the max.

Ed

Holy Family

Did you ever meet a successful person who didn't come from a good family?  You can cite many examples of people who did good from very difficult backgrounds.  This week, this Advent Season I have come to realize the power and importance of the family.  Our example starts with the Holy Family.

The Holy Family is Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.  Can you fathom being the father of the Son of God, the Son of Man?  I have tried to understand it but it's pretty much not comprehendible.  It's a Mystery.  It is such a great example, I try to imitate it just a tiny bit in my daily life.  I have 3 wonderful step children and they have 5 beautiful children between them who count me as grandpa!  If that's not a miracle, just call it a mystery!

It's hard to be "successful" because we don't even agree on what success is.  The older I get the more I see that success is measured in joy and love and not in farms and tractors.  The love I've felt this past month overwhelms the value of all of the articles God has given me dominion over.  I love to take care of his land and to take care of my family but the family comes first.

He gave us seasons so we can do each plant, tend, harvest, and enjoy.  This is the joy season.  Yesterday there were 2 pots of chili on the woodstove while kids and grandkids enjoyed each other's company on or behind the snowmobile.  That gives me great joy.  How many kids and grandkids even have that opportunity?  They don't take it lightly so they give us great joy in return.

Jesus was missing from his family for 3 days when he was 12.  Can you imagine the angst his parents had looking for him for 3 days?  Some parents go nuts if their kids are gone 3 minutes, let alone 3 hours or 3 days!  Have I been missing from my family?  I haven't so much this year but I can sure see where I did it in the past!

Winter is the season for closeness, we have huddle together just to keep warm!  It will be too soon when winter is gone and it is time to plant once more.  My 51st year to plant is close!  There is so much to do before I plant that crop.  I have gypsum, lime and fertilizer to spread and new tile to repair.  I have to figure out how to control my pests, mainly weeds.  That will have to wait now that we have a real winter at hand once more.

It's my main job to see that I help keep my family holy.  That's a pretty big job for anyone but especially for me.  I could get lost at the NoTill Conference and come home with my head in the clouds.  I might do that because I have in the past.

Learning is one thing, practicing what you learn is whole 'nother ballgame.

It's time to play ball!

Ed