This has been another very pleasant week with nice sunny days except for a little overcast and spitting Wednesday. Every morning I wake up and look out to see if that dreaded snow has arrived. I don't want snow although I know it is just a question of time before we get it. The weather can stay like this until Christmas.
In this area, the combining is pretty well wrapped up. I hear on the east side there are many fields left to go. Let's hope the weather holds so everyone gets done. I see the rail cars are coming and the elevators are loading them. Grain is moving. A little threat of a fine on the railroads is a great incentive. The elevator companies are starting to pay more for the wheat. Incentives to deliver up to a dollar a bushel more at the green elevator. Could it be possible the farmer could get paid a decent price again for his grain?
I see some of this grain that was straight cut "dry" is going into dryers. These are smarter guys than me as after all expenses they still have money left to dry $4.60 wheat. What if it is not top grade? Even less. Maybe next year do a little swathing. Fellas. and it will really be dry.
I have to fix the front of my tractor before I can put my blade on. We will do that next in case that T-Rex winter comes the Farmer's Almanac is predicting. The tractor was damaged as Sven learned how to drive and had to be towed out more than once. I am going to put the meanest, toughest tow hook on the front of the tractor you can get. The golden rule of "shiny black stay back, if in doubt, stay out," took a while to take. We need to be ready for winter, anyways.
On the home front, we are done combining, we are done harrowing, the equipment is parked. Jaco is swathing on the last patch of green feed. The swather will be parked. We want to swath it now so it can cure and be ready to bale before winter. That is the plan anyway. I have someone else in place that will bale it. There is a saying here that fits this situation. The best laid plans of mice and men, sometimes go awry and must be started over again. We can make any plans we want if the Big Guy doesn't let us have good weather all bets are off. Maybe we will have to freeze dry bale it.
On our hired help situation, we will soon be without any. Sven has a job with Hi-line. He started on Tuesday. He was usually a pleasure to have work for me and I enjoyed his company. He said he would come help me on his days off. He came from Montreal and I would say he knew absolutely nothing of farming. He was a quick learner and a willing worker. I wish him all the success in the world at his new job. I hope I was able to teach him a few things in the short time that he was here.
Our other man Jaco from South Africa is leaving Oct. 21 to go back to South Africa for his brother's wedding. He says he is coming back in December. My life experience is I hope so but "we will see." He has been a good help for me as he has farming experience from back home. He can weld and fix, which is important on this farm. The only fault I can say about him is he has no concept of "hurry hard winter is coming," which lead to me pushing him to get done. He is much better now than when he came. There are some things he had never seen before like John Deere's flat face hydraulic fittings. When you put them together without the little o-ring a lot of oil ends up on the ground especially if the leak is under the middle of the tractor. It is a sore point here on how many pails of oil we have had to buy this year. That was not the only hydraulic leak on farm equipment this year. I think it was an epidemic.
The other thing he did was I sent him to Scott Research Farm day. He came home an expert on winter wheat and insisted we seed the whole farm to it. It took me a while to de-program him. There will be none of that disease infested, winter dying off crap on this farm. There is too much at risk to grow a crop that you may get nothing.
Another small problem we had is Afrikaans and English. Apparently there are no Afrikaans words for pipe wrench, crescent wrench, Allen screws, table auger or rock shaft and other words we use. Sven from Montreal didn't know those words either. It was a common problem when we had other trainees from other countries in the past. They learn English in schools but farmer Saskatchewaneeze words we use here are unique to this area.
I was watching a farm show on television the other day. A company in England has invented this inoculant that makes any plant make its own nitrogen. It gets into the roots of the plant. It comes as a little pink prill put on with the seed or a liquid seed treatment. They know it works as they have tested it on corn in southern France and Africa. The interviewer asked about the cost and the executive was very non-committal, but he said there also was going to be a tech fee. The way he said it I would bet all the tea in China this product will never see the light of day. There are a lot of vested interests that are making big money off farmers selling them nitrogen. There is another problem, once the genie is out of the box they can't get it back. Once this inoculant is in the soil, it will keep working. Our soils or early wheat varieties like Marquis fixed their own nitrogen. Prairie wool grass could grow five or six feet high without fertilizer. Over the years we have lost those little organisms that were in the soil. Now we may end up paying a tech fee to get it back.
Joke of the week: A polar bear walks into a bar. The bartender asks what he'll have. The bear says "I'll have a beer." The bartender asked, "Why the big pause?" The polar bear shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know, I was born with 'em."
