Here's to an old friend

Hi there it's been a while since I talked to my old friend but I got to thinkin about you the other day. I've changed quite a bit since we last spoke but somethings never change. For one thing I sure love harvest time. For the past few years we have been farming grain sorghum. Some people call it milo.  The harvesting of this crop is just as fun as wheat harvest but it occurs in the late summer instead of late spring. 

well its over (mostly)

from down by the river side: well its over. We finally had our auction yesterday. Told just about everything good bye that wasn't nailed down here on the farm. Had several people ask what I'm going to do now. My response was "keep farming." I guess the only reason to have a sale is to do something different in most people's minds. We saw it as a way to clean house and do a better job at doing what we love to do - farming to help feed the world.

Me and Cranky want to say a special thanks to everyone who helped with the auction, who came and bought stuff and those who just came to visit. We appreciate having you over.

Here's what we did this past week. Mike, Kendrick, Maxton, Daddy and I were all about working the calves. We turned 58 of them loose on the Pickens/Richardson place. Hope they stay out of the wheat! We had to buy a new fence charger and install new ground rods to keep them where they are supposed to be.

Here's Mike givng shots to one of the "Cranky Steers" (he's getting good at that)

here's Maxton checking to see if we need more calves run up the chute.

here's another "shot" of Mike:

here's Kenny checking to see if Mike is staying in line:
And one last thing, here's one of Parker's jokes: "What do you call a bull with no horns?.....A cow!"

looking east

Hello everyone. Do you ever look forward to visiting with someone and then don't know what to say when you are with them. (sorry just got distracted by a wayward piece of toast stranded in the pencil drawer. Hopefully it was Parker's and not mine.) Anyway, back to conversation we were having. Sometimes its just nice to be with someone and not say anything at all. That's what we did last night. Jenn and I took a drive, stopped by mom and dad's and just let the kids run wild around the yard and we just sat and enjoyed the evening.

Thot you might enjoy this pic of Carson & Griffin enjoying suckers from Aunt Keren. After we got home last night, I was feeling a little bit down and out because we drove up by the school where the prom was going on. Made me feel a little old for ma and pa to be driving around with all the kids loaded up in the car. Upon thinking these thoughts, I was changing diapers, putting on PJ's etc. etc. etc. when Parker came knocking on the locked bedroom door. (you may wonder why Jen and I were getting the kids ready for bed with the bedroom door locked. I'll leave that for speculation.) Parker kept knocking and hollering so Jenn finally answered the door. Parker said "the sink in the bathroom is running over!!!" Jen asked "why didn't you shut the water off!!!" as she stepped across the hall already flooding with water and shut off the flow. Parker said "cause I didn't want to get my socks wet!!!" That's when I lost it. Nothing could have been funnier! Try to enjoy the small stuff, its probably the funniest.....even when there is nothing else to say. Keep you sails out. You'll catch a breeze sometime.

think green

Happy Easter everyone. I'm so glad that spring has sprung. Seems like its that time of year when everything is new again. Check out these flowers from up by the shed:

This gets me in the mood to smell the fresh mown hay, honey locusts, alfalfa in bloom, and WHEAT HARVEST. What a better life. Especially watching the kids hunt for Easter Eggs this morning:

Even when its hard, keep looking up. Jesus is coming soon.

a week makes a lot of difference

Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, life is checkered shade and sunshine....Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha.

The first day of spring has come and gone without me even remembering or noticing. The picture below was taken by our house Saturday afternoon:

From farm headquarters (at fireside): Hello everyone. Spring has sprung with a flurry of fun and games here at the farm. Below is a sample of our activities:

Gretta's observations of the last flury of wintertime activities was done from the safety and warmth of her box in the garage. Keep the box warm G.

We had a very nice week on the farm this past week. Cows are busy trimming the "winter grass" that has started to peek through the leaves and old growth from last year. Fence was built to pasture some native pasture land that we call the "Old Crow" place up by town. This land hasn't been pastured for a while so it has some great old and new growth.

I think this week we'll start with the fertilizer and weed control applications of the bermuda grass down on the river bottom.

Talk to you soon. r

Spring has Sprung

From all of us at the farm headquarters: I think we've officially kicked off spring with bang. This picture was taken by a "storm chaser" out by Hammon back on Monday.

We've been busy this past week on the farm. It seems the weather plays havoc with the schedule board so I'm just going to pencil in "BUSY" everyday for everyone. How's that? We've been moving our electric fences to keep the cows off the wheat that we want to save for grain harvest and keep the cows where they are supposed to be. Not an easy task with green lush wheat on the other side of the fence from you no matter how much those cows mind and listen;)

Now on with something very newsworthy:

Mike Sigg has Officially been here with us as our friend and co-worker for 1 whole year!

WAY TO GO Farmer MIKE!

In other news we (rick, jenn, parker, preston, griffin, carson, and claire) all took a trip to Jenks to see the Oklahoma Aquarium. We went with Jenn's brother Jason and his wife Amy and their 2 kids (William & Alex) Wow, we were impressed. Never before had the kids or us parents seen such great exhibits. We then went for nap time up to the Port of Catoosa. That's where we get to sell some wheat from time to time. After that we checked into the Holiday Inn, complete with swimming pool and trampoline (our bed unfortunately). Griffin complained that he didn't know any better because he had never seen such a big bed.

For supper that night we went to Incredible Pizza. It certainly lived up to its name and we had a blast.

After getting up and enjoying the breakfast at the motel, we headed out west towards Enid. We stopped by Leonardo's Discovery Warehouse. I have never seen such an extensive outdoor jungle gym, maze or whatever you would call that structure. I would have played longer myself. Inside Leonardo's Warehouse we played for a long time too by going "shopping", playing "dress up" and painting masterpieces. Well worth every penny! After getting buckled back in the car, all the kiddies needed a nap and Jenn and I had a great visit on the ride back to home base. Safe!

Cranky says.......

Howdy Folks! Looks like there just might be a hint of spring in the air today. I saw a few tulips and daffadils starting to poke through the ground. How have you all been lately? We've been pretty busy here on the farm. The cattle pretty much take up our time in the morning. In the afternoons we've been trying to work on remodeling a fixerupper house we bot 2 years ago. We've also been trying to get ready for an auction to sell some extra equipment, tools, household items, etc..... Lately, all the kids have been practicing their cowboy/girl skills. Here's Claire's attempt:

Below is Preston (Paul Newman's lookalike)

Parker looks the part pretty well:

Here's carson's attempt: notice a wash rag instead of his hat in his hand.

Here's Griffin's little smile under his hat:

As a fun project right now on the farm, we have made a start at least to try to sell some of our home raised beef directly to the public. We have a steer being processed right now that will be cut in quarters. If you are interested, please let me know asap. You don't even have to buy a a whole quarter, but its just a way to divide up all the meat evenly.

I recently found a neat website: http://thepioneerwoman.com/ This lady has some of the funniest posts and best pictures I have ever seen, complete with picture naming contests. She has even been on Fox and Friends and Good Morning America with her cooking demonstrations. Below is a sample of one her pictures I thought was pretty funny.

I'll let you guess what the photo was named in her contest.Go ahead, check out the link to her site. You'll be glad you did.

january on the prairie east of t town

Above: The River Valley looking East from the camp site by the pond we are fixing. It was about 4 degrees this morning.

Hello everyone. Its been a slow week here on the farm. We've been rebuilding a pond dam that washed out, hauling and selling our older cows and calves off the wheat. That pretty well sums up the last week here. Parker has gotten on the habbit of "going hiking". We'll take one this afternoon here in a little bit.

I took a couple pictures of our neighbor's cattle while out checking cattle here lately. Thought we would ride over and give them to him here a little later after everybody gets up from their naps. Here's a beautiful shot of their cows on the river:

And here's one of Eddie's prize long horn cows.

Also, below, here's Rex on a typical day feeding cattle
Notice the calf back towards the open barn door in front of the cow feed bunk. He's our current little bottle baby. Park has taken to calling him "Black Shop". Not sure why and don't think he even knows. Also, notice the yellow 'schwans' feed truck. The most we have had to feed this winter has been 5 tons in one day. This truck will hold about 7 tons of silage. This silage has been a point of controversy on the farm however. It seems we've been feeding more than cows with it because the wild hogs come in at night and eat their fill. We've been trying to get rid of this guys for a while now. I think we'll have to fence the silage pit with some hog panels to keep them out.

al

lazy Sunday afternoon

Greetings everyone. We are at a new chapter in our lives this afternoon. All of our kids are now able to get out of their cribs on their own. What a fast Sunday afternoon we've had.

Much of our farming time this past week has been focused on keeping the animals fed and watered. A cold snap shuffled in two times this past week. Last Sunday evening, we had a great big cold front blow through and then last Wednesday another one came roaring in. We had two nights with temps down into the single digits. Wow. What a shock to the system. This afternoon however its a balmy and windy 67 degrees. Not bad for a Sunday in December.

Here lately, we've been starting to feed our cattle liquid molasses.

This stuff helps them to have more energy and boy does it ever make them eat everything in sight. We'll keep hauling the stuff to them. However, please let us come live with you when they eat of out of house and home. The talk is that if you feed your cattle molasses, they'll eat just about any thing. Well, it sure does make them eat up that wheat straw that they would never eat before. And now, they even have better hair quality. Maybe that is going a bit too far.

Below is a pic of them licking the molasses off of a wheel that rolls down into a tank full of the sticky stuff.

time to take account

Hello farmers at heart. This is it. This is your season to take account of what has been done this past year. The grain is in the silos and the calves are out on the wheat and the cows.....well, who knows where they are. And we farmers are approaching that time when we all become a little more reflective no matter what type of day we've had or how busy we've been. This is a precious time of year. The little children at home looking with hopeful anticipation of dad getting in from the cold and holding them on his knee. Each one reflecting sweetness in their little faces as their time of anticipation draws near. Wouldn't trade that for anything with anyone. And to think, it must be like that with our Heavenly Father and us. Well, on that lingering thought, I'll share a few pics with you and let you be on your way:

Mollie, my faithful companion in her seat on the patio behind the house.

height of the Endurance wheat we fertilized and sprayed for weeds and cheat back on 11-20-09 was about 3" high and looks thick as hair.

#196 (heifer born at Sheldon Payne's place) now she's here in the field by our house waiting to have her first calf. Hopefully sometime in December about Christmas time.

growing

Hello there. We've had a over a weeklong rain delay for our wheat planting. We mulch treaded and packed the Lapel place on Saturday, so we'll be off to the races with drilling there at tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock sharp. A special thanks goes out to Rodney Wheritt for spaying the volunteer wheat with roundup so we can try to get a perfect stand. We'll plant Doans variety that came from Joe Peeper up near Enid. This is a fairly new variety for wheat country as it was only introduced to growers in 2007 and this is the first year for it to be used by farmers other than seed growers.

Yesterday, we bot a new camera to replace the one that got dropped one too many times. Jenn is working out the kinks as I write this.

To encourage your responses, I have a special prize for the person who guesses closest to the correct number of grains of wheat per pound of the Doans Certified wheat seed I mentioned.

Gradually expecting a change.....

FARM UPDATE: Autumn is settling onto the Oklahoma praire where the wheat planting is winding down. Wheat spikelets are popping out of the ground all over. Calves are being weened from their mama's with anticipation of getting a taste of early wheat pasture. I can hear a pen of them bawling just outside the window down at TC & Christy's (our neighbor to the south).

We are getting a little bit of rain today. Maybe we'll finish drilling the wheat this week. Part of the reward is in this effort of planting alone.

Sowing the Seed

Hello farmers at heart. We've been busy planting our wheat. So far, we have finished over half of the farm and used up all of our Endurance Seed Wheat. Now we're starting to use our Duster variety. On Thursday morning early, Daddy and I took our annual trek to see how the first field we sowed was looking. You should have seen it. Beautiful.....Each little spikelet of seedling wheat had its very own diamond dewdrop on top of it. Pop would have been very proud (even if this was on our no-til upland river patches). Every time I think of No-Til Farming, I remember him saying "Don't neglect the seedbed!"

Update: Well, Dallas Crowdis came through. He found us an 8-volt battery for the 1951 Chevy Wheat Truck. Way to go Dallas and everyone at DNA Auto. Truck runs very smooth and we were all happy to see it driving down the road.

Wheat's growing
Cow's lowing
Moon's up
Lights out.

rants from the backyard overlooking my life

Would you think that an 8-volt battery for a 1951 Chevy truck would be too hard to find? Well, apparently they are. I was trying to get one this week for Pop's pride & joy but to no avail. Tried NAPA Auto Parts - they said convert it to a 12-volt system. Called John Deere and the 8-volt battery in their computer was listed as "unavailable". Is nothing important just simply for the sake of that's the way it used to be? Are we too busy to appreciate anything besides something that is NEW? Maybe my heart is a relic of the not so distant past. I think I shall take up cigar smoking ..... perhaps.

Into everyone's life a little rain must fall

Hello everyone. Sorry we've taken so long off from the blog. For the past month, we have had some very sick kids. It all started a month ago this past week. We thought our kids one by one were coming down with the flu. Well, after the "flu" had pretty much run its course, the first kiddo to get sick was sick again. Turns out that all 4 quads had e-coli. For Preston, Claire and Griffin, they in turn got sick again with HUS. Its sort of like blood poisoning that resulted in a week and half hospital stay for Preston, a week for Claire and just over two weeks for Griffin. As of Friday, however we were all back home from Children's Hospital in OKC. Everyone is doing very good now. Just a few carryover problems from high blood pressure for 3 of the kids. We are staying on top of this.

As for the farm, many thanks to Daddy, Mike and Kendrick for holding down the fort. They were able to work on the fence a lot, work the ground at least once over with the springtooth and even keep the minerals put out for the cows. Doesn't even seem like they needed me at all. But Jenn and I missed this place. Its certainly good to be back home.

Today, it is raining. Official Weather Observer Maxton Slagell has been eying the rain guage. So far as of 7:00 a.m. this morning we had 1.85" of rainfall. We've had some more that has been falling here since the report this morning too.

We plan on starting to drill wheat next week on or about the 21st of September. This past week, Mike and I made our annual trip to Alva to Joe Shirley's farm for seed wheat. Take a look at Joe's website www.shirleyfarms.com. There his wife Ann and son Biron loaded us with a load of Certified Duster and a load of Certified Endurance. We'll probably plant the Endurance on the home place here because it makes such good pasture during the winter for the mama cows. Maybe some of the Endurance will also go on the Kaiser and Miller places in order to make hay there and help clean up some pesky rye that tries to come up and grow with the wheat. Endurance variety is known for the great amount of forage it produces.

As for the Duster, it was our best yielding wheat for this past summer. It will probably be grown on the Pickens place as well as Huiatt and Long 1/4.

On Thursday, Mike went to the Enid area to Joe Peepers farm. There he picked up a small load of Certified Doans seed wheat. As he was coming back home, he stopped in Lahoma at Byron Hobson's farm to pickup a small load of Cerfied Santa Fe seed. He was able to do this because our trailer has two separate compartments that can hold about 500 bushels of wheat each. Pretty handy for such a trip.

We have almost completed the two wire electric fence on the Woods and Pickens places. Its going to allow us to keep the 2nd calf cows/heifers out of the trees, creeks and ponds on those places this winter. It'll make them much easier to check come calving time. Special thanks to Kendrick and Max"well" for this effort since I've been gone so much.

My Granny taught us a poem with this portion "look this way see nobody, look that way see nobody, hoe corn, dig tater." Perhaps this is one of those endearing things about life on the farm, that we just have to keep on going no matter what.

God Bless, thanks for your prayers. P.S. don't turn the cows into the garden just yet, I think the tomaters are coming on strong!

A week of catching up

Well we've been recovering from the sweltering heat of the past few weeks. Much time this week has been spent working on electric fences for our midsummer cattle endeavors. We've also been busy cleaning up our equipment that we did our field work with. We worked everything at least twice except for the no-til farming we're doing near our house here on the river. The guys have all been busy building electric fences of either the one or two wire variety.

We got about a one inch rain all together early last week. Maybe we'll get a little more this week it looks. We've been starting to sell a little equipment again. Maybe we'll "clean house" and get rid of some extra stuff. Anyone who's interested needs to check the website soon. It'll be updated with some new stuff to sell.

On Thursday, we all banded together - Daddy, Max, Kendrick, Konner, Mike and myself to work our calves. We had a grand total of 40 that got the "works" and then we ear tagged a few of the younger ones that were too young to work. This gave us the opportunity to cull 2 cows. Who were too old and fat to turn back loose.

On Monday, we picked up our first beef from the locker plant that we've home raised in a while. You ought to come by and visit because you'll be in for a treat if you stay for supper.

deep in the middle

Below: Was that daddy's tractor? says Carson

Below: I was wondering where my hat and showes went that day. Looks like Griffin is the culprit.

Hi everyone. This week (and last week) we've been all about working the ground. Mike, Konner, Kendrick, Dad and myself have been pretty good about taking turns and keeping the wheels turning on the tractor. We've had good luck and not much in the way of breakdowns. Rother Bros. at Clinton has had to make 2 service calls for a tractor problem that keeps reoccuring on the calibration for a transmition shifting problem, but other than that not much problems have gone on. We've been sweeping the ground with sweep plows, then since we've received no rain, we've had to change and deep rip the ground and follow with a sweep plow. On the ground we used the sweep plow on first, we have gone back and deep ripped and sweep plowed again for a stubble mulch affect. This week we are planning on finishing our ripping and sweep plowing work and hooking up to the moldboard to plow up Long Quarter, Huiatt, Lapel and all of the terraces on each farm.

Well, been there and done that and without pretense.

Here's a view from the cab of our Case International STX325 tractor pulling sweep plow on Long Quarter:

Below: Here's Jenn's kitchen during harvest meal prep!

Below: here's mom driving the chuck wagon and on a mission. This day we were cutting wheat on the RMc place.

Below: putting seed wheat from the Airport place in the wheat bins on the Hamar place

Below: Eating lunch on the Airport place (Rex, Konner, Rick listening to a tale spun by Mike.

Mike during Lunch seated infront of his combine and Konner/Mikey's Grain Cart

Below: combine driven by Rex unloading, Konner on Cart and Mike in his combine in front. They were cutting on "Old Crow" place just east of Thomas.

Below: Yours truly advertising for Blahut Harvesting

Below: As a reminder to be careful, Jenn and Parker saw this accident while on a parts run. 2 people were hurt pretty bad after this truck rear ended a grain cart pulling a combine header.

Below: Jenn and Parker on a parts run last week to Schmidt & Sons in Mt. Hope Kansas.

Hello friends, Well harvest is about all wrapped up. All we have left to cut is the wheat that's on the river bottom, so we should be wrapped up on Monday (I think, however we've had .7 tenths rain over night). This week has been long and the whole crew is extremely tired. Thankfully everyone still has their sense of humor and no one it seems is irritable but me. We've cut about half of our total acres this week too. We've made a parts run to Fairview, OK and Pratt, KS and Alva, OK. Willie our faithful truck driver got here this week on Monday and that was while we starting to put some seed wheat in the bin. Has he ever been handy! We thought we ought to save a little seed wheat just in case we can't buy any to replace it with. On Monday, Willie hauled me the wheat at the wheat bin and I put it in the bin while Willie took the empty truck back to the field. That wheat came off of the field we call "Airport Place."

During mid-week, we made the trip down south to cut "Woman Later" place down between Weatherford and Thomas. This trip is pretty hard because we have to go out and around Deer Creek Bridge on Hwy 54. We made it however without a hitch. Just had to air up the combine tires to get over the several bridge banisters we do have to cross.

Sometime this week we also got started working our ground. We started this with a sweep plow that just slips under the ground and works it by lifting it up and over the blade. This really helps control weeds too and then creates a "stubble mulch" effect. On Saturday the ground started getting too dry for the sweep plow to penetrate the soil so we had to switch to the Laney Ripper which has spikes that penetrate the ground about a foot deep and then we follow immediately with the sweep plow. Kendrick Wingard and I worked on the laborious project since Thursday once we got the guys on the combines and trucks off and running. So far we've worked about 400 acres in this fashion.