2011 farming season has officially opened

Farming really goes on year round.  Winter is filled with planning and ordering seeds and maintenance whenever possible.  Early spring brings the start of growing the greenhouse started plants such is tomatoes and peppers and broccoli.  And of course more maintenance.  But I never really consider the farming season "started" until the first plow touches the ground.  Today I pulled in the driveway as I was coming home from work in the evening and was greeted by Mike driving the tractor up to the house from the fields.

The plowing has begun.  It's been so nice to see the sunshine after the past month of rain and clouds and below normal temperatures.  Every year the weather brings a new challenge.  No two years are alike just like snowflakes.  Here's my handsome man parking his tractor in the driveway.

Mike has been diligently working a new piece of equipment for this year too.  It is a combination plastic laying machine/planter.  The machine will plant corn or beans and then lay a row of biodegradable clear plastic over top.  The plastic holds in warmth from the sun and heats the soil faster so that we can plant corn or beans earlier than if we planted in the open air.  When the plants reach a certain height, the plastic will be split so they plants can continue growing.  Pretty cool, eh?

I was FINALLY able to get the three month old layer chicks moved from the brooding pen to the adult pen.  The don't look very "baby" any more.  They are fully feathered and look like miniature full grown hens.  It must be tough to be a prey species though.  The chicks are quite fast and hard to catch and so when I went to move them, I caught them when it was just starting to get dark in the evening.  Most of them were up on the small roost in the brooder pen and you would not believe the squawking and carrying on they would do when I picked them up off the roost in the semi-darkness.  And being in the wide open spaces of the adult pen is a new experience for them too.  The ceiling of the pen is much higher and there is more room so that when I walk in the pen to feed, the chicks all go running and a squawking into the back corner.  Oh, in a week or two they will start to settle down.  They are already starting to look forward to the vegetable trimmings I bring to them to eat as a treat.  Before I know it, they will be following me all over the place like the older hens do.

As I am sitting here typing, there is thunder and lightning moving in from the north.  Funny how there was a near zero percent chance of rain today.  Let's hope we don't get much out of this or the plowing will come to a screeching halt.  Weather and its challenges.  It is what it is.