Farming #3 -- The Disc

Now that spring has finally arrived, John has finally made it out into the field. Now I think it is pretty safe to say that everyone knows that in the spring, farmers plant. And that is true. However, before you plant, the ground has to be ready. After a long, cold winter the ground is hard and dry on the surface. The ground almost begs to be worked. There are many tools and machines that can be used to prepare the ground, and I'm sure I'll talk about more later on, but I'm going to start with the disc.

First piece of machinery.... how exciting!

The disc is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is a whole bunch of heavy, slightly curved, metal discs arranged in rows, that are then drug behind the tractor. The discs turn in the ground and break up the soil.

Now you might be saying to yourself, "Grace, that looks like a rusty piece of junk in your pictures, why would you even bother using that thing?". Okay, I know it might look like that, but there are two things you need to know. First, just about everything on our farm looks kinda rusty. (Haha, John is gonna be mad that I wrote that!) Second, the discs don't stay rusty for long. The friction from the soil makes them shiny again in no time.

See? Once again it looks like steel.

There you have it. Not really complicated, but it can start to get confusing when you see all the machines together. I still get confused sometimes, and then Austin makes these faces at me like, "Really? Don't you know this yet?".

He'll get over it. He grew up with all of this. I didn't.

Stay tuned to the blog! Sometime at the beginning of next week I'll be putting up a new blog, with Austin's help, about the hydraulics on the machinery and how they are used. I know. Sounds really exciting, I'll make it more interesting somehow....

See you soon!

Spring has finally arrived

After a VERY long winter, and then a season of monsoons, I think spring is finally here. The weather is finally starting to warm up, and we might actually make it to 70 by the end of the week. I has been over six months since I could wear my flip flops without my toes freezing off. I'm ready for some warmth.

Turkey Tracks

Deer Tracks

Ahhhh.... spring. My favorite time of year. The bright green of the grass is almost shocking to your eyes after all the dullness of the winter months. The trees wake up and begin to poke out some leaves. The farmers start to get over excited and get our every piece of equipment they own and inspect it for the upcoming planting season. The race begins to see who can get into the field first.

Austin, for once in his life, just taking it easy.

I've been trying to spend some more time outside enjoying all this nice weather. I'm not a person that enjoys really hot weather, so once summer kicks into full gear I'll probably be hiding back inside in the air conditioning. But for right now, I'm going to take as many walks and ride the four wheelers as much as I can.

I'm so happy to see all of these lovely spring colors after so long! Aren't you? Or is Mother Nature still trying to make up her mind about what season it should be where you are?