And a New Season Begins

The slow pace of winter is starting to give way to a renewed urgency to get things ready for planting season.  The winter has stubbornly refused to let go, but as the sun climbs higher in the sky and the hours of daylight continue to increase, its days are numbered.  That doesn't stop the cold mornings from putting on a show.

These poor ducks couldn't get there feet wet after a cold night.

To escape the grasp of winter I managed to squeeze in a trip to the west coast to attend a family wedding.  So while in Vancouver, we made use of this novel service called public transportation.  Where else can you get city tour for $10.

                         Under ground or above some very non-rural transportation was used.  I have no doubt the novelty would wear off quickly, but it was a fun change of pace.  But I wouldn't give up my farm for city life any day.

Back home the winter wheat looks to have taken winter in stride, but is in no hurry to green up.

Although it has been relatively dry, the ground is fit to handle a fertilizer spreader.  I have so far held off applying my nitrate.  The forecast is calling for rain, and I don't want to see all my Urea flushed into the ditches and into the lake.  It won't help the yield if its not there.

I patiently await this field to green up and when the wheat starts to wave to me in the breeze.  I have had particularly good luck in the past by putting on a later application of nitrate and am in no rush to get this job done.

With most of my farm equipment well over 30 years of service, some things begin to wear out.   

So it was time to get some new tires on the "big" tractor.  I have no problem admitting that a MF2705 is far from a big tractor, but thats what its called on this farm.  She has the duty of all the heavy pulling.  This spring half of my ground was fall ploughed, so there will be lots of opportunity to break in the new tires.

As much as a I would like a newer tractor, this one has a history of reliability, good fuel economy and without all the modern electronics, I can generally fix everything that goes wrong.

But not having $150,000 to shell out for new one is certainly the main reason I plan on using this tractor for a few more years to come.

With the temperatures too cold to even consider planting, and ploughed ground a bit too wet to start to level them off, its a good time to take care of some little jobs.  A few trees have reached the end of there life and have more dead branches than budding.  So I put my chain saw to work to drop these where and when I want them rather than waiting for a storm to send it into the side of the barn. 

I looking forward to the warmer weather, but in the meantime there is always something to do on the farm.