Racing the Rain

After 5 days of fast and furious planting, things came to a halt. Rain. While rain is a good thing, it could have waited a few more days. I think we had two down days, not being able to get out in the field. And by down days, I mean working on other things. 

Bob S (I decided to go with Bob S when talking about Chris's dad Bob. I could have gone with Tall Bob or Skinny Bob but that would imply that Farmer Bob was neither of those things and that I would just mean, and I would never, never imply anything like that) and I worked a couple days taking down some old fence lines. Probably a mile of fence in total. It was a combination of barbed and mesh wire. Neither are as easy to work with as high tensile which rolls right up. Barbed wire catches on everything, including your pants. I went through two pair of pants on this adventure. Granted they were my oldest most worn pants to begin with so not much lost there. 

We start by taking the Bobcat with forks along the fence, put the forks on either side of a T post and lifting up on the wire. With luck, the T post and all the wire/mesh come up with it. With bad luck, the wire breaks and nothing comes up. We had more good luck than bad, and in probably 4 hours we had all the posts and wires laying on the ground. 

Next up is taking all the posts off the wires and putting them into the truck. Another couple of hours. Once that is done you have to roll up the wire. This is somewhat painful...literally. The barbs catch on everything. Luckily, they have a wire roller hooked up to their tractor which makes things much easier. For the mesh, it is down on your hands and knees rolling it up into rolls 3-4' across, cutting it and doing it again, and again, and again. I probably crawled 1/2 mile on my knees before it was all done. 

Skinny Bob, I mean Tall Bob, wait... I mean Bob S operating the wire roller.

Although it was not raining during this project, it was too wet to get into the field. We spent another couple of hours cutting the ends of a tree line so equipment could get past us and another couple hours picking up sticks and branches on other tree lines so they do not get caught up in the machinery.

I got this shot of Farmer Bob while he was breaking up some new ground after we took up some fence. 

While we were driving back and forth from the fields, I took the passenger seat while Bob S drove. I am pretty sure he was getting annoyed with my "Stop!" or "Drive slow by this slough" as I took pictures of the waterfowl inhabiting them. My goal is to try and get some decent shots of each of the different waterfowl species that inhabit the area. This week I got a canvasback, redhead and a pintail. I still have the gadwall, green-wing teal and a few others to go. 

Three drake (bull) 'can's' and a pair of 'reds' in the background.

A pair of 'pins'

If I am really lucky, I get some good shots of them flying. I use a common method for perfecting my shots of flying birds. It is called the Point and Pray method. Take enough pictures and maybe one or two will turn out. These were the best I got this week. 

Pintails

A pair of shovelers and with a blue-wing teal bring up the rear

And of course, I cannot help myself from photographing pheasants that present themselves!

For the shorebird enthusiasts, I was hoping one of you could identify this bird. I know there are a few of you out there on the east coast who might know what this is. 

We also worked on Holly's chicken coop. Well, chicken palace is more like it. I have never seen a coop this nice! We put in doors, did some electrical work, installed wire mesh and finally it was moving day. Calvin helped Bob S and I move the chickens over to their new home. 

Wednesday, it FINALLY dried up and Chris was able to get back out into the field. But the weather forecast only gave him about a 36-hour window before the rains started again. So, he jumped in the tractor and started seeding..... for 33 hours straight. No sleep, no breaks, meals delivered and eaten on the run. While that was going on, Farmer Bob was rock picking, Dylan was treating seed, Bob S. was rolling the planted pea fields and I was hauling seed and fertilizer to Chris when he needed it up until 11pm that night when Dylan took over and delivered throughout the night. By the time the rain started again, he had 830 more acres planted. 

Chris, during one of his pitstops

Then the rains came again. Enough to keep us out of the field for a couple more days. I know they want and need the rain, but I have a limited time here and want to help them as much as possible before we head off to our next adventure. As it looks, it will be close as to whether or not they will be done before we have to leave at the end of the month. 

Barb continues to send me pictures of the fun they are having back home. This week was mostly fishing.   They got out a couple of times on several different lakes and streams. Needless to say, they were making me quite jealous!

So here we sit, waiting for the rain to stop. Today is Saturday, I have been here just short of 2 weeks with two weeks to the day remaining. We have roughly 2,400 acres planted which would bring us to about 40ish% done. With luck, the rain will stop soon, and we will get back into the field on Monday. In the meantime, seed customers continue to come and go during the rain, and we will keep busy putting the final touches on the chicken palace, organizing other things and trying to keep Farmer off the bottle!