Planting!

First in our 2013 farming journey is that we have to plant in order to have a harvest (and a living!) so follow along with us as we share a few days in the life of a farmer during planting season.

The seed has arrived!

Storage shed for some of the seed - more to come.

Varieties we will plant this year include Pioneer, Asgrow, Channel, Dekalb, Wensman (sorry no photo as seed not here yet!) and Dahlman.

Brother-in-Law Eric and hubby Randy  loading the planter via the "new-to-us" forklift that can actually reach to the top of the planter deck!

Even though we still have (I think it's a glacier) snow in our yard we must farm! Photo taken May 9th!

So.....this is how we do it...... (sing along!) The majority of our fertilizer goes on in the fall.  We do some in the spring and have it put on by either Barrett Farm Supply or Pro-Ag www.proagfarmers.com.  Once that is completed we do the following:

#1 - Tillage

#2 - Planting

#3 - Rock picking or before #1 and after #1 and before #2 and after #2 - you get the idea!!!

One of the MANY rock piles!

Two questions to answer:  #1 - How much do you farm?  We will plant 464 acres of corn and 492 acres of soybeans this year.  We also co-farm with Randy's brother 628 acres of corn and 459 acres of soybeans.  We share equipment with my father-in-law and brother-in-law and do a bit of custom farming.  Altogether we will hopefully raise 1809 acres of corn and 1782 acres of soybeans.  As of today, we are done with all the corn planting and have approximately 480 acres of soybeans left.  We started planting on May 7th! (rains came - thankfully, as fields were dry - about 2 1/2  inches arrived  from May 18th through May 31st.) We are patiently waiting for the rest of our acres to dry up a bit so we can finish the 2013 planting season!

#2- What type of machine do you run?  Well, as you can see from the photos, the majority of our machines are Case IH red.  We work with a local implement dealer about 14 miles away http://elbowlake.titanmachinery.com/ in Elbow Lake, MN.

Love being a Farmer!  Julie