Backwards!

Talked to Garry yesterday, he was heading to bed after a long day, and I was heading out mid-afternoon in Manitoba to pick up Seth and Jonah from the U of M for the weekend (PS don't go to pick up your students when there is a CFL Bomber game- they close campus roads to students and staff for 2 hours, I didn't know they were playing and I was later than planned, but I managed to get them, even without a cell phone to call Jonah!)

Anyway, Garry had some land worked up to plant winter wheat, they have got some rain to wet the soil so it will sprout now. He said that they have given up on the idea of seeding alfalfa on the small piece where they had winter wheat last year, it just got too late in the season. The rain arrived later than last year, and of course they just got the seeder bought, they didn't not purchase the additional seed boxes for the alfalfa seed, but had acquired old ones from two different guys in the village, Maxim had torn them apart and painted them with some good rust covering zebra paint, and rebuilt them two weeks ago to put put on the seeder when they bought it. The seed box owners just want to use the seeder sometimes in trade.

Anyway, the shiny seeder pictured in the previous post called Here and There was made in Ukraine and cost $8,600 dollars, which is a pile of grivna, Garry has been saving up farm profits from selling crops and milk and some extra cows (there were more milking cows than stalls last month) to buy this seeder. However, they spent Friday morning tearing it apart, taking the wheels off and the front of it to turn the sprockets around. I guess someone wasn't paying attention at the factory, because when they tried to plant, seed came out when it went backwards instead of forwards (the clutches were engaging while driving forward to plant)! By the time they were finished changing everything around, the rain that was getting them wet while they were taking it apart, had gotten heavier, so no wheat got planted yesterday.

Tall corn

Meanwhile here in Manitoba, the boys are hoping to dodge a killing frost on the 1600 acres of corn for a few more weeks so they will have grain corn, snapledge (a kind of high moisture corn with cobs) and a big pile of corn silage.

Matt is is 6 ft 3 in, if you are wondering how tall the corn is in the this photo taken last week!