A Twist of Lime

Cherry limeades were a special treat at Grandma Marie's house. After she died, I brought the juicer home because my kids had such great memories of making limeades with their grandma.

She would combine fresh limes and sugar-free Cherry 7-Up and serve it up with ice and a straw. Sounds tasty on this hot summer day, doesn't it?

Maybe you watch those Food Network shows, and the chef is always squeezing or zesting a fresh lime to create that perfect balance of acidity (whatever that means).

Well, this is about lime. But it's got nothing to do with the Food Network or cherry limeades.

It's all about agricultural lime. Several weeks ago, Randy gathered soil samples from different fields and took them to the co-op so they could be sent to a lab for testing.

Several tests for the pH of the soil came back low. An ideal soil pH is around 7. We had some tests that came in around 5.

The pH is a logarithmic scale: The lower the pH, the more acid in the soil. The higher the pH, the more alkaline the soil. A pH of 6 is 10 times more acidic than 7. A pH is 100 times more acidic than 7.

Well, I didn't get all that either. That's just what Randy told me. But I do understand that the soil needed lime.

Lime is a long-lasting soil additive made from crushed limestone or chalk. The finer it's crushed, the more effective it is. The application done this year should balance the soil for several years to come. Raising the soil pH should make more nutrients available for crops.

The co-op delivered the lime and left it in sandhill-type piles in the fields that needed it. Then, on the day the lime was to be applied, the Caterpillar front loader filled the truck bed ...

and off he went, applying 1 ton of lime per acre to those fields.

Hope the soil gets refreshed as well as a cherry limeade would refresh me right about now!

Jack Frost

Wheat crop on November 18, 2010, after a heavy frost


The leaves fall

The wind blows
And farm country slowly changes
From summer cottons
Into its winter wools

Henry Beston, Northern Farm

There was no frost on the pumpkin, a condition some poet once eloquently wrote about. (I did look at the pumpkin I had near the front steps, but truly - and surprisingly - there was no frost.)

However, last Thursday, there was frost on plenty of other things here on the County Line. I did need my "winter wools" - or at least a heavy sweatshirt - when I went on my walk.

But the nippy air was worth it for the beauty of the heavy frost. Like icing on a birthday cake, the frost decorated weeds and gave them a festive gleam.

It transformed them from boring brown to crystals glimmering in the faded light of the sun, which was shy to arise on the crisp November morning.

Summer or fall ... fog or frost ... There's beauty to be found among the weeds.

I think there's a lesson there.

August 18, 2010

All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

One evening, I drove by the huge mountain of milo on the ground in Stafford and saw a line of birds perched on top of the grain. Others were lined up along a nearby power line.

I thought to myself, "I'll bet those birds have been eating at the all-you-can-eat milo buffet and are taking a little time to let their food digest." (Yes, I have a vivid imagination, but I'm no Doctor Doolittle: I definitely don't talk to the animals.)

Around here, we saw plenty of birds eating their fill from the unharvested fields of milo. (It's a little hard to see, but all the little black dots in the blue sky were barn swallows who were dining at the milo field.)

But some of birds went the lazy route and dined at the all-you-can-eat buffet. None of that tiresome hunting and gathering for them, no sirree.

While there are plenty of places in Kansas with rolling hills, my area of Central Kansas is fairly flat. But we have our own version of hills these days.

All across this part of the country, co-ops are having to store grain on the ground. In Stafford, besides the milo pile east of the co-op (pictured at the top of the post), they've begun another pile north of the highway.

There are two bunkers of corn. One has been covered and is protected from the elements (and hungry birds).

They are still dumping trucks at the other corn pile, though they are also trying to load out some of the grain.

Even in a rural community, the storage method is not without its detractors.

I have heard more than one person complain about the grain dust generated when harvest trucks dump outside in the brisk Kansas wind.

I certainly understand people who struggle with allergies. My husband and my son are two of them (and me, to a much lesser degree). Outside storage is nobody's first choice - the producer, the co-op or the community.

I'm sure the co-op is thankful for dry weather this fall. Last fall, there were repeated rains on the unprotected grain. And, even with no rain, there's some inevitable quality loss and deterioration during on-the-ground storage.

I, for one, am thankful for a plentiful, bountiful harvest.

In Stafford, there are probably 1.5 million bushels of corn and milo on the ground. Believe me, nobody would choose to store in the neighborhood of $7.6 million dollars of grain on the ground. There's just no other place to put it.

A Time of Harvest

Milo to harvest and the newly planted wheat on the County Line
October 2010

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.

For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

Edwin Way Teale

At the County Line, autumn is a time of harvest and a time of sowing. But after a couple of weeks of non-stop wheat sowing, it was time to harvest our milo crop.

We actually started milo harvest on September 22, but then took a timeout for planting wheat. This week, we've returned to harvest mode.

We have 290 acres of milo. We planted our 2010 milo crop in June. Randy uses milo in our crop rotation as a way to get rid of cheat grass on wheat ground.

We don't have any irrigated fields, and milo is more drought tolerant than corn or soybeans, two other fall crops we could add to the rotation on the County Line.

Input costs for milo are less: The seed costs less than corn and soybeans, and we don't usually have to spray for bugs. However, the yield potential for milo is also less, so there's definitely a trade-off there.

Later this fall, we'll also fence off milo stalks and use it for grazing for our cow herd.

We're used to seeing cattle on the milo stalks. But, on September 22, there was another kind of visitor. As we drove along a shelter belt, we flushed out some monarch butterflies from the trees. They didn't stick around for round two of our harvest.

Since we got a little bit of rain last weekend and into Monday, we had to cut samples of milo and take them to the co-op for moisture testing.

My friend, Carry, runs the grain through a machine at the Zenith Co-op to determine moisture levels.

The co-op won't take the grain if it tests higher than 15.5. A week ago today (October 8), we were all set to cut milo, but the Zenith branch of the Kanza Co-op, where we usually take our grain, had a transformer fire on October 7.

With no electricity to the elevator, we had to take the grain to the Stafford branch until they got a generator late Wednesday afternoon (October 13) and could again take loads of milo. We rented a semi from my brother, Kent, since we had to haul further than normal.

Last year, the milo was "harvested" in one night when a hail storm worked its way down the County Line. And, as luck would have it, that's where our entire 2009 milo crop was planted.

As with most harvests, there are always some kinks in the schedule. On Wednesday, we had to have a combine tire repaired. Yesterday, a belt on the combine broke, and I made yet another unexpected journey to Hutchinson for parts after my expected lunch delivery.

But, even with some inconveniences, we are thankful for the harvest. This year, prices are just about double the 2009 price levels after last week's run-up in grain prices. So we are ready to get it out of the field and into the bins.

We hope to have the milo harvest finished up Saturday, if we don't have too many additional catastrophes. (Nobody hold your breath!)

***

Read more and see earlier photos from this year's milo crop by clicking on these previous posts:

Half Full? Or Half Empty

Blink

Sunshine and Raindrops

Luck of the Draw

What does it take to produce a good stand of alfalfa? I suppose I could innumerate things like a firm seed bed, cooler temperatures and just the right amount of sun and rain.

Those things are all important, according to my personal crop consultant.

But what does it truly take?

Luck.

Yes, there you have it. The definitive answer is luck.

That isn't according to The Old Farmers' Almanac or some crop science teacher at K-State. No, that's just homespun wisdom from a long ago neighbor. This neighbor always seemed to have great success when he planted new fields of alfalfa. Some of his neighbors asked him why his new alfalfa fields always seemed better established and more lush than theirs.

He gave them his advice, full of things like that firm seed bed and planting by the right light of the moon and other assorted wisdom.

And then, as so often happens when we think we have everything all figured out, he ended up with crop failure after crop failure.

It was then that he dispensed his greatest wisdom.

"Well, boys ..." (I can imagine him pronouncing at the coffee shop). "It turns out the most important factor for alfalfa production is ... luck."

Randy decided to try his luck last week when he planted a couple of new fields of alfalfa. And as is so often the case, his luck ran out about 1:30 in the morning on Tuesday. That's when it started raining. And before it was done, it dumped almost 3.5 inches of rain on the newly planted fields.

At church on Sunday, he had told a neighbor that he would order about a quarter inch of rain, slowly dispersed over a day, with the moisture falling gently and evenly on the newly-sown field.

Somehow, the order got mixed up.

Our alfalfa adventure began with a visit to Miller Seed Farm near Hutchinson to pick up seed. Randy did have a little luck involved in this venture before he ever started planting. He won one bag of seed at a customer information meeting earlier in the month. At $200 a bag, that was definitely an evening well-spent (plus he got supper out of the deal, too)!

Another nice by-product of planting alfalfa? It's a great weightlifting exercise to carry all the 50-pound bags into the shop until you're ready to use them. (You will notice that I carried my camera instead of the bags, even though I could probably use a little weight training in my fitness routine.)

He and Jake changed the settings on the drill, since you plant alfalfa seed at a shallower depth than wheat seed.
Last Friday, Randy got a little more weightlifting in when he filled the drills with the alfalfa seed. (Again, I successfully avoided the task by using my camera. Now my friends know why I take so many photos.)

Here's how the alfalfa looked in the drill.

And here's a close-up of the seeds, which are treated with fungicide and inoculant.

He also mixed in a quarter pound of turnip seed to cover the 70 acres we were planting. The turnips provide a little additional cover during the winter on the newly established alfalfa fields. (Plus, his wife is in charge of the church's food area at the fall bazaar. I'm always looking for turnips to sell by the pound. Nice side benefit.)

Jake disked the fields to clear them of weeds and work in the wheat stubble. It also helps create that firm seed bed.

Randy then followed with the planter. The yellow tank on the planter holds fertilizer, which he also applied as he planted the alfalfa.

An alfalfa field produces hay for about seven years, during which we harvest the crop to feed to our cattle and sell the extra.

And then came the rain.

I then learned another tidbit: Alfalfa doesn't like wet feet. Well, I'm not a huge fan either, but I guess it's a little more serious for the alfalfa. If alfalfa is sitting in water for 48 hours, it will die. That's why mudholes in fields never have alfalfa.

But, there were glimmers of hope. Yesterday morning, we were able to find a few hearty sprouts of alfalfa in the field.

My eternal optimist isn't ready to write off the entire crop. However, he figures that replanting is in his future. It costs about $50 an acre for seed each time you plant. (That's why I can never re-do the bathrooms in my house. Alas, such is the life of a Kansas farm wife. There are trials along with the considerable perks.)

So next time, we hope to sprinkle in that ever-so-important factor ... LUCK.

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything, turn, turn, turn.

There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.

With a front row seat to nature's changes, I think I've found the perfect theme song for the County Line. "Turn, Turn, Turn," the classic song from The Byrds, often drifts through my mind as I walk along our dirt roads.

The latest crop that has me humming along is the sudan planted just south of our house. We planted it after we harvested wheat off the field, so the ground was double-cropped.

In early August, the sudan crop was languishing in 100-degree-plus heat. It was growing less than the runt of the litter. But we got a 1.10 inch rain on August 15, so Randy & I figured we'd try a photographic experiment. I took this first photo that afternoon after the sun came out. The next day, we got another inch of rain.

I took the second photo yesterday, August 23, just a week and a day later. No longer is it growth challenged: It just goes to show you what a timely rain will do.

Eventually, we will swath the sudan and then bale it. We'll use it to feed to cattle this winter.

The timing for this process is up in the air at this point. Randy says he'll either do it before or after he plants the 2011 wheat crop in September.

Overnight, we got another 3.40 inches of rain. That's probably more than we needed on some newly planted alfalfa, but that's another story for another day. The moisture will continue to nourish the sudan, the silage, the milo crop, the pastures and give us good subsoil moisture for wheat planting next month.

So, here on the County Line, I'll continue humming my newly found theme song on the continual soundtrack of music playing in my head.

If you'd like to join me, here are the words and a video illustrating it.

Enjoy!

***

To everything, turn turn turn
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die.
A time to plant, a time to reap.
A time to kill, a time to heal.
A time to laugh, a time to weep.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to build up, a time to break down.
A time to dance, a time to mourn.
A time to cast away stones.
A time to gather stones together.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time of love, a time of hate.
A time of war, a time of peace.
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing.

To everything, turn, turn, turn.
There is a season, turn, turn, turn.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to gain, a time to lose.
A time to rend, a time to sow.
A time to love, a time to hate.
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late.

Based on Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8