Wheat Sowing - 2015 Crop Year

It began yesterday late afternoon.  Milton prepared the grain drill and headed to the field north of our home and the farmstead.  He began sowing wheat into the field that had previously produce irrigated corn.  The ground was still a little wet for his liking but father in law was ready to sow.  :)  Milton does most all of the sowing and planting of our crops since we have this grain drill.  

There are many  farmers in our area that started sowing wheat over a week ago. In fact, when I went on my walk yesterday morning I found a few fields that had green popping up! Sometimes I giggle to myself when it is harvest or planting time.  Every farmer has their own opinion of how to farm and when to plant and harvest.  Which is a good thing, but it's funny to see who is first in the fields.  :)   My husband tends to be more laid back, he isn't lazy at all, but he tends to have his reasons to wait.  Just as I'm sure the other farmers have their reasons for starting when they do.  There are different varieties of seed, just as their are a variety of farmers in this world!  May they all find bountiful crops before them!

Let's back up for a minute, last Friday Milton invited me to ride along to check this field he is currently sowing wheat in.  We needed to check to see if it was ready or too wet. 

There's no scientific way to check the moisture level.  The farmer moves the past crop remains out of the way and digs in the dirt! :)

We found it too wet to sow wheat that day.  So he headed off to his construction side job.  The weekend brought family fun but not before he continued to do some maintence on the grain drill. 

As Dad began to sow wheat for our 2015 harvest, PV and I spent some quality time together.  We played several different card games.  She is a pro, but I think it ended up pretty even for the most part! :)

This time of year is a busy one for Milton and my father in law.  They are sowing wheat and harvesting fall crops.  Soybeans will be next, we are thinking later this week.  So the duties of this farm mom increase, so I'm grateful for the new work schedule.  

Have you noticed?  Are they sowing wheat in your area?  How is fall harvest going in your neck of the woods?

Thanks for stopping by!
Julie 

September & Corn Harvest Continues

With my new status of being home more than away, it gives me an opportunity for me to remember why I love what my husband does for a living.  Not because he helps feed the world, provides for our family, or works physically and mentally hard, but because I get to see first hand the impression he is leaving on our child. 

Tonight they were able to get back in to the field to continue corn harvest, so supper was served in the field to Milton.  It was his first night back from his hunting trip, so I had planned a nice meal of Pork chops, rice, and carrots.  Well it's a good thing I have a handy plastic compartment plate with lid!  I need to find some more of them! Send me links if you know of a place I can get some!

The little farmer and I headed out to the field in the mule.  Milton was unloading and then came to sit with us to eat his supper.

His Dad returned with the semi truck from unloading at the farm.  There was an issue with the elevator leg, specifically one of the downspouts.  So Dad jumped in the combine, and we took Milton back to the farm so he could see about repairing it!

There was an area, straight in front of him on the downspout that was worn and corn was shooting out of it.  So he had to make a temporay repair!  It's funny what a farmer will find in the sheds to repair something!  Tonight it was belting and zip ties.

It's amazing what will entertain a six year old on the farm too.  While waiting for Dad, this is what PV talked Grandma into doing!  85 degrees out and she has the snow sled out!  Gotta love this little farm gal!  Don't worry, I did give Grandma a break and took my turn pulling! NOW, to just train Charlie to pull her!

Once the repairs were done, I took Milton back to the field.  When we arrived we climbed into the blue farm truck.  It was ready to unload, Dad was down the field, so we took her home to unload!  Milton did visit with me about shifting gears and pushing a red button, and how to lift the bed.  I'm just going to leave it at that for now.....

This. This is what I love.  These are treasures my friends! Sweet memories in the making!  Take a gander! Love love love them!

Once it was unloaded, Milton and I headed back to the field.  PV stayed with Grandma to finish cleaning up the corn and sweeping it into the pit.  And of course play with Charlie!

When we returned to the field, as we waited for Dad to make his way back to the truck to unload corn, Milton checked out the soybeans.  Before we know it, we will be harvesting these non irrigated soybeans.  

Grain sorghum/Milo is my favorite fall crop.  I think it is just so pretty when it starts to turn red.  I plan to go look at those fields this weekend, I have plans to use some of the milo for decor.  Our annual Landlord's dinner is coming up in October, and I think it will make a nice centerpiece.

To end this post I will leave you with this photo.  I love generation photos, especially when in the midst of what both these two individuals love to do in life.  Thanks for stopping by!

Julie

A Blogaversary Giveaway! Celebrating 2 Years of Blogging! Winner's Announced!

Well the time has come for us to announce our winners of our 2nd Blogaversary Giveaway! Thank you to everyone that participated and I hope you continue to enjoy our blog! 

Please message to me your address, if I know you or you are local, I will deliver it in the near future!

Prize number one goes to:   DIXIE SEBITS

Prize number two goes to:  JILL KRUSE

Prize number three goes to:  DEB WOOD

Once again we want to thank you for participating and following our family farm blog!  It's been a great two years and we are blessed!

Thanks for stopping by!
Julie

A Blogaversary Giveaway! Celebrating 2 Years of Blogging!

We have been teasing about a giveaway to celebrate our 2nd year of blogging here at In Between The Sunsets of Life!  

Before we jump into that, our family would like to say thank you for following our little piece of the blog world and sharing our posts.  Life here on the farm is a wonderful experience, although full of lots of lessons! If we can help others or teach others about rural living than it's all worth the time and effort we put into this blog! Thank you!

August 15th, 2014 marked our 2nd anniversary, due to family demands we pushed our celebration off until today!   We will now reveal the giveaways!  

1st prize is a lovely basket of Kansas made or Kansas related items!  
Let's start from left to right shall we!  

Crotchet tea towel holder, Embroidery dishtowel, Kansas Wheat  Commission Recipe books, Homemade Jam (by Julie), dBee's Honey, Grannie's Mustard, and Knackies BBQ sauce, and to represent our biggest crop we grow, a beautiful wheat decoration.

The honey and BBQ sauce are our families all time favorites!  They are made in our county and are the best of the best my friends!  The cute wheat decoration was made by none other than my friend Nicole's family over at A Kansas Farm Mom! I didn't embroidery or crotchet the items but they were made by Kansas folk!

2nd prize is a sweet little bundle of Kansas yumminess!

We have another lovely tea towel, yummy BBQ sauce, and two small jars of homemade jam!  Sandhill plum and Strawberry!

The 3rd prize  includes a lovely apron that was sown by my middle daughter Kassidy. It is black, white and yellow and is a full apron.  Along with it you will get to enjoy some homemade Peach jam and a sweet bottle of dBee's honey!

All you have to do is the following, and you will be entered for the drawing!  We will draw on Friday September 19, 2014 and announce the winner that day!  So be sure to follow the steps, and the more things you do below, the more chances you have to win!

Disclaimer:  I will ship the prizes only within the United States and the basket in the first prize is for display only. It is not part of the prize.

Once again, thank you for joining us and be sure like, share, and check back on Friday!

Julie

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Taking a Break from Farming

Milton and I had the opportunity to spend some time together yesterday.  So we headed out for breakfast and then adventured to a museum in Newton, Kansas.  It is called Kauffman Museum and is tied in with Bethel College.  For both of us to get in the cost was $8.00 and I think it was well worth the money spent.  

Their current temporary display was about farming, which we didn't know until we got there.  There was  part of an irrigation center pivot and lots of information on farming.  It was nice to see agriculture in the museum to help educate those that are removed from the rural communities. 

I thought this was interesting display talking about No till, we are primarily no till farmers. Which means we do not work the ground after a harvested crop.  We do not disc or plow the fields before planting the next crop.  

Machine they use to measure CO2 in soil.

Types of crops raised in Kansas.

Other parts of the museum had some lovely displays to show what it was like to live in the old days. When I say old days I mean like 1800's and before.  

This is a drill from back in the day I tell ya!  We have it very good Milton & I decided!   Our drill today is quite different. Farming technologies have come a long way.  We do not have GPS or things like that on our farm, but we do know some farmers that have advanced to that technology as well.

Our drill today.

Their main display was on the Mennonite faith, which is interesting to me.  We are of the Lutheran faith.  The other displays included Mennonite made furniture and they were lovely pieces for sure!

On the exterior of the building you can go on a walking path through some trees. When you first walk up to the building there is a Native grass display.  Milton really enjoyed this section.  He has planted some native grass further out from our home in hopes that one day it will be tall and beautiful! There is an old barn and farm home also on the premises.

Back at the farm, the corn harvest only has a few acres left.  It was still too wet as of yesterday to harvest.  Our next crop will be soybeans to harvest.  The weather is cooling down and Fall seems to be right around the corner!

We hope you are doing well and appreciate you stopping by the blog today!

Julie

Friday Goodness & Learning Experiences

Since the corn is too wet to continue to cut, we headed to the Kansas State Fair yesterday afternoon. It was nice to have some family time and we hadn't been to the fair in years.  

While we were there one of my friends, Nicole from  Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom was there with her son Mr. D who was showing Miss Ellie.  If you don't follow her, head over and do so. She's pretty amazing at telling the story of agriculture first hand.  She's an actual farmer and rancher.

I liked this experience because PV was able to go back to the barn area and walk around where all the show cattle were kept.  Since Milton and I are not experienced in showing, we all were taking it all in.   As we walked around we witnessed cattle being cared for, you know washing, blowing drying, fluffing their hair, I think some of them looked better than I do on most days! :)  

Most of them I saw the youth actually caring for the animals. The parents did assist but in most cases the youth were doing the work. Which is a great thing I believe in this world today.  The parents were advising in cases, and the ones that were about to show, they were alittle nervous for their youth and their livestock.   :)  

PV was able to actually meet Miss Ellie and pet her.  

Nicole's other son introduced her to Miss Ellie.  I love this photo because you can tell he is explaining things to PV and she is listening. Mr. M was quite the bundle of information for us while we watched the livestock show too! :)

H

He has even offered to have us come to his family farm and he will teach PV how to show bucket calves! I love it!

As a family we were able to experience this and it was very interesting and fun at the same time.  Meeting the Small Family was enjoyable and makes me want to hang with them more! I thank them for sharing the experience with us!

We ate Pronto pups, Roasted Corn, and had ice cream of course!  A few rides were ridden, and lots of walking!  I picked up some recipe books from the Kansas Wheat Commission booth I am excited about!  

Here are a few other shots of our fun at the Kansas State Fair!  

Searching for Rocks

This is our Alfalfa field. 

From this view, you really can't see the Alfalfa.

 Here is a close up shot and it is just in the beginning stages of growing.

My farmer husband asked me if I wanted to go out on this cool beautiful morning 

and help him pick up rocks and other miscellaneous items from this field. 

He had went a couple weeks ago and started the job.  

This was his load that first time.

Even though it involved manual labor, I jumped at the opportunity to 

spend time with him and have some adult interaction.  

Staying home, although I've been busy, there isn't much conversation with 

anyone until about 4:30 each day!

The bonus of walking the field gave me more "steps" and enabled 

me to get exercise which isn't a bad thing.  

I am hoping the bending over works the waistline! :)

You might be wondering why we would bother to even clean up the rocks 

and debris in a field.  The reason is that these types of items, 

if ingested into a piece of machinery, could really damage the machine. 

 There used to be an old oil disposal well in this field, so that is why there are such items there.  

We hire someone to swath our Alfalfa, but even if we did it ourselves we would want to do this type of field maintenance.

Our load isn't too bad for an hour or so of work.  

We found rocks, metal, golfballs, and even a piece from an old Clorax brown glass bottle. 

So you know that has been around for awhile!

So did you find this post interesting?  Did you learn anything new?

Our lives are in a transition period right now, but it's a good thing.

Life is full of treasures and sometimes they are found amongst a bunch of rocks, 

in a field, on a cool morning with my honey!

Thanks for stopping by!

Julie

Corn Header Maintenance

My husband decided this year the header needed some maintenance completed.  I thought I would show you what he has replaced on it.  Although you want to get your full use out of parts, it's best to keep an eye on the areas of your machinery and replace before they break completely.

This year he is installing new gathering chains and sprockets.   You can see in this photo the old sprocket is on the left and the new one is on the right.  Yea, that one on the left is pretty worn!  The gathering chains

This photos shows both newly installed into the header.

Corn harvest was underway but due to 4.5 inches of rain we are unable to keep going.  We are hoping tomorrow afternoon we can try again.  Our granddaughter was able to come out this past weekend and ride the combine!

Just a little update from the farm!  Hope all is going well for you and yours!  Our daughter started first grade and loves it so far!

Thanks for stopping by!
Julie