Library progress, as of today

Towering Hartwick Pines

Buckley

As we entered the grounds of the Buckley Steam and Old Engine Show, we almost lost Boden. He was entranced by "Thomas" and all his friends. Eric and Lea Anne could not convince him that all the old machines were not trains! And when we found the train, Boden didn't want to ride -- he only wanted to watch :)

We especially enjoyed watching the threshing demonstration and hearing our farmer remember watching one work in the old days at 5550 Chicago Drive.

Old times revisited

Hartwick Pines, Buckley Steam and Old Engine Show, Happy Birthday Jason in the Walmart parking lot -- fun times last week Up North.

But touring Grayling with Eric, Lea Anne, Boden and Heidi (who really got a lot out of this :), became a nostalgic visit to our past. We found 208 Alexia Lane, saw the garage we built and the cement slabs we poured. We drove past the army airbase just around the corner from the building where we were baptized, stopped in front of the old USDA-SCS office, pointed out Michelle's birthplace, Mercy Hospital, found the Westers' home and drove by the fish hatchery. Wow! We were just kids then. Lived there from 1972-74, just before God transplanted us to this farm. Quite a journey...

Corn game

Well, the introductory phase of the corn game is over. We are now deep into the math. This noon Farmer Don picked an ear just a little way into the field behind the house. Conclusion and rationale:
One ear -- 18 rows of 35 kernels = 630 kernels per ear
Estimated ears per acre = 30,000
Estimated kernels per bushel = 90,000
Based on that, estimated bushels per acre = 217
Subtracting 10% for 'margin of error' = c. 200 bushel per acre yield -- of that
variety in that spot in that field.

That 105 day corn is showing some dents. Typically, denting should come around September 1. Now black layer will probably come around September 1. Last year, the first denting occurred by the first of September.

Stump grinder been and gone...

Debris from the hard maple is ground up to nothing! Al Kachur is the man!!!

Now living in our back forty...

Dad wanted you to see one of last week's projects at Freedom.

Dutch Daddy -- Oops!

Okay, we had a new one. Yesterday during feeding, Farmer Don found a large deceased bovine. Today, in preparing for removal by My-Pac he found the reason. Being your typical Dutch Daddy, he had purchased some 'free martins' that weren't and some steers that also weren't. Sometime they got together and the resulting, undetected offspring made an unsuccessful passage into the harsh world of a beef barn. Both mother and calf are deceased -- a reminder of the amazing way God has allowed humans to intervene when helping their own offspring, preventing so many problems...