Ruby Slippers and Georgia Peaches

After planting the corn and soybeans, it’s time for irrigation and spraying. They send fertilizer through the irrigation systems and they spray herbicide with a huge applicator.  When all that is done, the farmers go back through the fields with a cultivator. When the cultivator has been through the ground (it fertilizes as it is cultivating too), the ripper goes through the field as a final pass-through.  The cultivator chops up the sprayed weeds and grasses. It also turns the ground to disrupt weed and grass growth. I like when the farmers cultivate, because it makes the fields look neat and fresh again. After the cultivator work, the ripper comes through to make sure the ground is not compacted amongst other jobs. The twirling paddles, dammar diker, make little pockets to catch rain/water so that the moisture is not wasted or goes to a “run off”. Some people say this is redundant, wastes money/fuel and “old school”. Some farmers around here rip the fields and others do not. However, The Owner states that he has much better yields per acre because of ripping. So ripping they shall go.

We stopped by the shop the other day for a visit and Wooster was getting the ripper ready to do its job.

All the bolts have to be aligned and tightened. Then the parts have to be greased. Sounds easy and quick, but it is an all day job getting it ready.  The job is long, especially if you find bolts that are worn, broken and need replacing.

 See these little vertical lines? I first thought they were for filling in cracks on the teeth of the ripper. After some investigation and inquiry I found out the lines hold a special purpose to the ripping. The lines are a form of welded engineer coating on the teeth of the ripper. Because of sandy conditions the beads are placed at a right angle of travel.  This bead work allows for fine materials, such as sand, to compact in the spaces and provide protection to the base metal. This helps lengthen the life of the individual teeth on the ripper and helps prevent breakdowns.

These are all the buttons to push (or not push in my case), that the driver uses to get the machinery up, down, arms moved, etc.

View from up in the cab of the tractor looking back. Notice the father talking to the Kid. Sweet huh?

The little fork lift is used to help hold the arms or align the arms of the dammar diker.

We like stopping by for a couple of minutes to learn about the farm and how it works. R could care less, as long as she has her trusty frog friend and a seat, she’s happy.

Matt may be doing some of the ripping but more than likely he’ll be helping support. Everyone here on the farm does all jobs that need to be done. So, Matt isn’t the only ripper. There are many rippers and I don’t think that anyone’s name is Jack.  🙂

**If any information is inaccurate or misleading for the farm or machinery, all errors are mine and not the farm’s or Wooster’s**

Update: August 9, 2011–Wooster did end up supporting. He ripped twice. We are nearing the end of irrigation season and Wooster is now getting ready to harvest.

May 22, 2011

Well, maybe not the backwoods, but I had that song in my mind when I started typing.

Wooster came home for the afternoon on Saturday. It was a pleasant surprise. We haven’t spent that much time around each other doing nothing since…oh…before The Decision ’11 was made. All these months have been busy getting things ready for The Move, moving, settling in and working. It was nice just to sit and look at each other. He timed it well. He came home just as R is in her peak of “goodness”. Then she went down for her nap an hour later. Then we had THREE whole hours together uninterrupted.  No phone calls, no playing kid in the background, no irrigation emergencies, no hurrying to get back to the shop. We didn’t even unpack a box or move anything around in the house. It felt like old times….but in Kansas and with a kid…but nevertheless. Did I mention that it was nice?

After R ate in the evening, she and I got to ride along during the fertilizer checks. Fertilizer checks=stirring around fluid in 1500 to 1850 gallon tanks with a big stick in the middle of a 167 acre field. Sounds boring, but it ain’t.  There is always some type of adventure or new things to see. We also get to ride down roads I’m too chicken to take Red (Wooster’s 1970 2 Wheeled Drive Red Ford truck) down/up. I have my camera with me ALL the time now.

There are always a plethora of pheasants to see. When I think of pheasants, I think of nice birds painted on chinaware or in a beautiful painting. I know now why I’ve rarely seen pictures of them. The little boogers are really fast. Not only do they fly, but they run. When I say run, it’s not with their head up or at a nice pace. The little fellas duck down and run erratically through the weeds, wheat, corn stalks and bushes. So, it’s really hard to get a good picture of one. Just when you think they will stop, or are standing nicely, they move again. These pictures below are the best that I could do under the circumstances. (Also…these are not pictures of the same pheasant)

They really are pretty when they are flying.

We also saw turkeys, a few other pheasants and my little neighbor ducks. The little ducks live at a ditch ½ mile east of the house. There is always standing water in the ditch. The ducks are always there. They too are tricky to get on film. They startle so easily and I’m usually moving at a steady pace, therefore, no pictures of the ducks yet. I believe they are mallards.

Leviathans are our next subject. Actually it is one particular leviathan. However, this leviathan did not have scales.  He was HUGE though.

Yes! It is a bullfrog! Most commonly known as: Lithobates catesbeianus .I never got a full body shot. But Wooster said that he’s seen his whole body and he’s about dinner plate size.

That is what it would have looked like if I had gotten a body shot of it.

This big guy is hanging out in a mud puddle in a pivot driveway. We had a big rain on Thursday and Friday of this week. Wooster said that the big guy appeared after the rain. I have to look it up, but I guess he hangs out under the soil until enough moisture is above ground for him to come out. I suppose he will go back under the ground when the puddle dries. I was wondering what all the raccoons eat around here besides the corn and wheat in the fields. I see their little paw prints around the pivot centers. Now I suppose they look for bullfrogs as well.

 This is just a small sample of the MANY pictures I took of the bullfrog. It was fascinating to me. I was trying to get a good shot of the bullfrog’s body when Wooster was driving through the mud puddle, but the frog wouldn’t cooperate.  If R was big enough, we would have had a grand ole time trying to catch the bullfrog. That will have to wait though…maybe next year…when she’s had all her shots…maybe…

Next to the field that the bullfrog was in, this was going on:

These farmers were wrangling cattle to put on the semi. These guys are not part of the farm that Wooster works on. So, no friendly up close pictures were taken.

Here, most farmers sell the cattle to feed lots, and this is how they transport them. They wrangle them up with four wheelers to a make-shift pen. Then they load them through the shoot, off they go to the feedlot and then to the processor. The pen is taken down and moved to a different field where they will use it again for the next sell.

The evening ended with Wooster stopping and picking some nice wildflowers. I think they are one of the types of Kansas wild sunflowers that are on all the signs around here. I have to look that up too.

We came back home and had our traditional Saturday night pancakes.

I like days like these. They help us refocus and are nice to think back on when the days get hectic and mundane. That Wooster is one nice fella…I think I’ll keep him for a few more years.

May 25, 2011

We have been being hit by severe thunderstorms and small tornadoes in the state of Kansas. But they haven’t just been here. The south had them earlier this month, and then Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma had large deadly ones this week.  I recently wrote about storm chasers here. Since that day, I’ve seen more storm chasers and a few college study teams from different state universities. Last Thursday, we had a downward wind burst here in Byers. It was reported on here, by the Pratt Tribune. The newspaper failed to report the other downed pivots in the Byers area. There were two more downed pivots west of the house. All the pivots that were blown down were running east to west. The down burst of wind was traveling south to north. None of the pivots that were blown over were part of The Owner’s farms. Wooster had to check the 25 pivots that evening just to make sure. The Owner helped out and checked eight or so of them that he was near. Wooster was very grateful, for the pivots are very spread out.

When we first moved out here, Wooster was the one with the most fear of the tornado season. I was not. Now, however, it is a bit frightening when it is actually happening around us. When the downward wind burst happened last week, one of the doors that are on the Southside of the house was blown open and there were several limbs and tops of trees blown down. It was a bit frightening, especially when the weather radio went off. I thought it was for a tornado, but the alarm was for a severe thunderstorm. I had snatched R up and was heading, very quickly I might add, to the safety room under the stairs. All was well within five minutes. Just yesterday, we had more severe weather. It produced quarter sized hail and blinding rain.  I say blinding, because you can’t see very far during it. I thought all was clear, and even checked the radar when setting out for a jewelry party in town. As we were headed down the blacktop, I had to stop in the middle of the road for the blinding rain. Even when stopped I couldn’t see the front of the car or around the sides of the car to the ditches. It was a bit scary and for a few seconds I thought I might be in the middle of a tornado. I only sat there for about a minute and then it had passed. I continued down the blacktop in the sun shine. I tell ya, these storms here in the Midwest make the southern thunderstorms look like sissies. I think it’s because everything is so wide open here, there are no trees or other things to block the wind and it helps the storms pick up speed. I’m sure there are more technological terms to describe the storms. But I don’t care to look it up, besides meteorology doesn’t interest me that much. If you comment and tell me how it all happens, I’ll likely gloss over it, so don’t bother trying to tell me how it happens. Thanks though.

Here are pictures of our trusty weather radio. NOAA weathermen and I are best friends now. I tune in almost every hour when the little lights are on.

On a side note:

In all our marriedum, Wooster and I have not been without electricity. Well, there was a time in Rayle that we lost power sometime during the night, but it was quickly restored. And there have been little power blinks or surges were the power goes off for a couple of seconds and then returns. Not even once have we had to rely on flashlights or candles for an extend period of time. That is, until now. Wooster got in at 9pm last night (R and I were still at the jewelry party). He started in his nightly routine and 15 minutes in, the power went out. The power also went out in Pratt, were R and I were. So, when I got home at 9:30pm, Wooster was working out upstairs with a flashlight. The power came back on around 10pm. We survived our first power outage of thirty minutes. Wooster realized that he loves electricity and that we couldn’t be “plain” like the Amish.  🙂 It is a nice luxury to have and we are very grateful for it. There are many people across our country without it and many people in the world that wished they had it. So, we’ll be grateful for electricity for as long as we have it.

Second side note:

After re-reading the above a passage, it would seem that Wooster is a softie or requires a lot of maintenance. He doesn’t. It was just an inconvenience that he didn’t want to deal with after working 14 hours on an abundance of other little problems that he had faced during the day.

May 12, 2011

I saw my first storm chaser. They are called storm chasers, but they are really tornado chasers. I had gotten a text from Sarah the night before and it showed the storm chaser vehicle. I completely forgot about them until I was on my way into town and I saw the vehicle for myself.

the tank

It looked like a tank. I am a person that naturally asks questions, and you can bet that I had millions of questions running through my head. BUT, I was by myself and with The Kid. When I was watching them, I never saw another woman. They were all men and very young. I didn’t want to approach them by myself. If I had a guy with me, I would have walked over with no second thoughts. So, I watched them and took pictures from my car. Surely they are used to such behavior. They drive a tank across the country, looking at tornadoes. They have to expect it.

The vehicle was high enough off the ground that another man could sit under it, Indian style and work on the wheel. The dome shaped thing on the roof was a rotating viewing tower. It could rotate all the way around. After reading in the paper today I found out that this particular crew was part of the tv show called “storm chasers”.

(Front side of the vehicle as shown in the Pratt Tribune)

This is the current movie that this team has out in IMAX theaters. Their ad runs on the weather channel website.

I left the parking lot and went about my business in town. During the town visit, I saw two more storm chasing vehicles. Some had advertisements on them. I kind of got worried. I turned the radio to seek and called Wooster. I didn’t know if we were about to be hit by a big storm or what was going on. Then in Wal-Mart, I saw Sarah. She and her husband had talked to the guys the night before. The crews told them that they mainly hang out in an 80 mile radius of pop up cells and Pratt was a good central location for the conditions of the day. Umph…nothing to worry about…right? Right. When I got home I looked up one of the websites that a truck was advertising and saw this:

The little cars that you see are storm chasers. They each have a live video streaming of where they are at. Some of them have live audio too. This particular guy: James StormScapeLIVE was funny. I watched him for awhile, but nothing panned out. Then later on during the day, I watched a crew near Dodge City. I actually saw a tornado! Their screen had the words: IT’s HAPPENING!!!. I didn’t get a good picture of the screen, so I’ll have to wait until another time.

In case you were wondering. We are not located where the rain showers and heavy thunderstorms are on the map above. Condtions are less favorable today for thunderstorms and tornados.

On a side note. I went and visited Matt at the farm and looked down and saw this:

I thought it was a fluke and went home very slowly to let the sensors recalibrate. But it didn’t change for three miles and I was creeping along the road. When I finally hit the blacktop to come home, the temperature went down at 20 degrees every mile I went. When I reached home, the sensor said it was a nice 83 degrees. Matt still thinks it was a fluke. It was hot and with a steady 20 mph wind, it doesn’t feel very hot in comparison to the hot days in Georgia. So, I think it was a hot spot. Or it could have been a fluke.

May 11, 2011

We stopped by the farm earlier today to drop off some ear protection for Wooster and this was what was going on:

Bud's grain truck

Shoveln' corn over to the auger

 (picture before his six month hair cut)

corn coming out of the silo

auger moving corn up to the truck

tractor

Wooster wants me to clarify the above picture. All the tractors that they use on the farms are new, except this one. This one is only used to move the augers around the silos. That’s Matt and Bud at the base of one of the silos. Bud drives one of the grain trucks for the farm.

  The corn was getting low in this particular silo. Matt had to get in and shovel the corn to the sweeping auger. The auger sweeps around the circumference of the silo to move the corn down the pipe and out into the pan outside. The pan has two augers that move the corn up another pipe and into the truck. The auger can’t sweep the corn effectively when the silo gets to lower levels, so someone has to shovel the corn over to the auger. Wooster worked in the silo until all the corn was shoveled in the auger and the silo was empty. This amount of corn only filled up half of the grain truck.

I entered the “dark side” on March 16^th, 2011. I couldn’t help it. My husband led me to it. I know I sound a little like Eve did while talking to the Lord. But, I didn’t really mean to do it. I always said that I would be a faithful follower of the old tradition but it just happened. Do I regret it? Nope, not in the least. I have found a new appreciation for the dark side. You could say that I have embraced my paradigm shift. Yes, I’m actually learning to love it. I am an owner of a Kindle. An ebook holder is what I am now.

In all seriousness, I *always* said that I would not get a Kindle or a Nook. I had not really heard of one before Christmas 2010. I had a heated debate or ‘intense fellowship” with someone about how new fangled the ebooks were. I like tradition, I like tiny book stores. I also like the smell of books, the feeling of books in your hand. I love turning the page. I also secretly look at the back pages to get hints in the story lines. I didn’t listen to the responses of “you can make the nook have the sound of a turning page” or ‘they are so convenient”, “you can store up to 3500 books on them!”. Those arguments did not impress me at all. Until I turned 30 and had to move to Kansas, that is.

The Kindle was a birthday present from Matt for my 30^th birthday. He did know about my adamant feelings or the intense fellowship that had occurred about the new fangled things. He was taking a huge risk to get one. His logic? We were moving to the middle of nowhere and books were going to be limited. I would have limited time to visit media centers. Although I haven’t been to a public library in four years, I would be even less likely to visit one in Pratt.

Let me back up. For the past four years I’ve been reading only Christian fiction from our church media center. It is a wonderful media center that is always updating and improving their selections. I would get about four books during a week. He didn’t know if any of the churches in Kansas would have a media center as well stocked as back home, or if the local library would have a good selection of Christian fiction. I have to hand it to him that was some clever thinking.

In Georgia

So far on the new fangled thing, I have 10 over thirty books.  Out of all the books, I’ve only paid for the bible study book. You can get free books off of Amazon.com. I’ve also looked into being a reviewer through a company. When you read a new book, you have to write a 200 word review and then you get another free book. Sounds pretty easy, but we’ll see how it pans out.

What I like about the new fangled book holder:

1. Super convenient. I can take it anywhere with me. I don’t have to carry a stack of books around or worry about overdue books or getting them back.
2. Super small. I have the Kindle 3G. It is very slim and very small. It fits into my purse, so it makes taking it around really easy. It also fits inside my front pocket of my hooded sweatshirt. Very convenient. 🙂
3. Free Books. I love free books. I often worry about hidden charges, but I haven’t found a catch so far. I haven’t had to go anywhere to find books. I only have to go outside to the driveway to get wireless service, then wait for the book to download. However, I can carry it in my pocket while we walk in the evenings. When I get back in, I have my new books downloaded.
4. It is wireless. I can read blogs, newspapers and magazines on the new fangled thing.

What I don’t like: (some of these things could be related to operator errors and I may figure them out the longer I have it.)

1. It’s electronic. Every few weeks I have to attach it to a power cord and charge it. I have to do it more often when I have the wireless turned on.
2. It’s wireless. You would think that Kansas would have great cell phone coverage, wireless coverage because of being treeless. But my Kindle has a hard time finding wireless signals. I don’t know what’s going on with it. In Georgia, I had full coverage.
3. It’s harder to skip to the back of the book to peek. 🙂
4. Bible/Book Study: The pages are not the same as a regular book. I’m usually one to two pages off when other people are giving out page numbers of what they highlighted or liked.

 The “dark side” is not that bad. Since mid June I have visited the local library twice. It has a very nice collection of christian fiction that I have not read yet. So, when I get lonely for a real book, I travel back over to the “good” side. 🙂