Harvest time

It's cool and drizzly today, and we had classes to teach this morning with the first year guys (we are up to eight guys now, but there is a rumor that there will be two girls soon) had some visitors this afternoon. Maria is off to visit the very full boys house - nine guys living there now.

Saturday evening

Right now Garry and Max are sitting at the kitchen table doing some crop planning for the fall and spring. How much winter wheat should we plant? How much fertilizer do we need to buy and store for the spring? How much corn do we need to sell? Can we afford to buy a big tractor? We need to have money for the monthly expenses of the school. too (Milk is so cheap that we do not make a profit, so crops make the money. It does keep everyone busy all year round,) The Belarus tractors are not up to really heavy field work, they were considering if they should hire a farmer with a big tractor to work up some fields with a heavy disc, to save wear and tear on the Belarus tractors.

The auger is working well with a new motor to move the corn

That's right, sell, not just to buy seed and fertilizer, but so there will be room to put the rest of the corn in the storage shed. It's really full now. Yesterday the combine finished doing the 80 hectares of early corn, which was very dry, 12-14%. Those fields were planted three weeks earlier than the late corn, the leaves and plants in the late fields still look little green in places, so they will wait a while before combining the last 50 hectares.

The corn crop turned out well, about 50-60 bushels to the acre. It's not as good as last year's harvest, but better than most years. If we'd only had more rain or less heat in August... Garry thinks the cobs may be bigger and better in the late fields, so there could be higher yields to come.