May 4, 2015 was the start to #plant15 (for you twitter bugs) on LDS Farms this year. Our family had a bet on when we would start, I had picked May 3 and Logan my youngest son took the 4th. Well May 3 we filled up the drill and headed to the field late in the afternoon to “just get a start” and get it all set for the next day, only to drive into a rain 4 miles north of our yard where we were going seeding.
It wasn’t a big rain just too wet to do anything in the field that day. So I guess someone had it in mind that we needed to go to Fuddruckers and Ruckers in Saskatoon after seeding, see that was Logan’s prize for being the winner of the bet. Seeding the first field went very smooth with no real water problems and seeding into good moisture. The biggest trouble we had was getting the semi close enough to fill. The fields are still very soft for big trucks so had to stay close to the approach to the field. I went till 10:30 that night so that I could fill up in the morning and move to another field with Lane’s help. I finished the peas around noon.
As I was seeding those fields I was remembering past years that we seeded them. It is funny, as this year when it is still pretty wet in a lot of areas and some of our fields, these two were dry and seeded perfectly. I remember not that long ago when the first field I started on this year was the last field because when Lane got there with the sprayer he was spinning all the time. It was extremely wet and it wasn’t at the start of our seeding that year either. Strange, but I enjoyed the 1 mile long field with no turning for sloughs this year.
Cleaned out the peas and headed for home. We now had the daunting task of changing all the openers on the drill. They are the points that open the ground and gently place the seed in the furrow. The openers we had on had seeded over 23,000 acres so it was time. With the help of Josh (our after school and weekend helper) we did it in about 3 hours while thunder rolled in the distance, or maybe that was Lane in his new toy that he was playing with, but I will let him tell you about that. We now have the drill ready for wheat which will be the next crop we go to, but with a 1/3 of an inch of rain, we have a rain delay so Lane and I are headed to town to take our mother out for breakfast, you see it is her birthday and rarely do we get this opportunity. Gotta run…
