As stated in the title, today was spent entirely within a 5-mile radius of our humble homestead (at least for most of us).  After Dr. HN got back from church, he separated all of us into various farm activities with Denny, the Friests, and the Fiscuses (a.k.a. “Fisci”). Some of us began the day by picking up rocks in the fields.  We pick up rocks because large rocks can inflict thousands of dollars of damages on the machinery.  I was not one of those tasked with this activity, but you can read about it on Adam, Hedley, or Kris’s posts.

Instead, I went to Brent Friest’s farm to accompany him while he sprayed a neighboring field with herbicide.  Hedley and Rachel came along, but they helped one of Brent’s daughter’s clean the horse barn before going riding.  Farmers spray herbicide over the planted seeds right after planting and a second time after a few weeks. If necessary, they also spray pesticide as well.  They use chemical applicators, or “sprayers,” that can span 40+ feet.  One such sprayer is the Hagie STS, which cost $300,000 and reached 80 ft., if I remember correctly.  Unfortunately, as with most farmer-y activities, it did not go quite as planned.  We spent over an hour trying to fix the motor that would pump the herbicide into the sprayer.  We broke five or six pull chords only to find out that it just needed oil.  In our defense, we had already checked the oil, but apparently it needed to be completely full before starting.  Then, we got about two rows from finishing the field before running out of juice. Dangit.  Nonetheless, this was a really good opportunity to see precision farming in action.  Brent had the most modern technology in the cab guided him within inches of where he need to be in the field.  Even more amazing, the computer kept track of which parts of the field were sprayed, and the computer would turn off individual nozzles if they passed over a line that had already been sprayed.

Layout of the farm with location points.

The precision technology.

The big ol’ sprayer. I could literally walk under it without ducking my head.

The infamous rocks that had to be picked off the field.

So, Brent then dropped me off back at the Neubauer farm, where Dr. HN was disconcerted by the fact that I still had not seen planting.  Luckily, Denny and Scott (Denny’s son) were coming back to fill up the bean grain cart for planting in the field that we cultivated yesterday.  Denny drove me back to the fields in a really nice pick up truck, and we then proceeded to planting.  In true farmer fashion, we had to stop several times to fix something, all accompanied by an extremely loud alarm in the cab.  First, we stopped to clear dirt off one of the planter sensors, which would otherwise keep freaking out until we did something about it.  Second, according to Denny, one side of the planter often runs out before the other.  To fix this, we had to manually transfer the seeds from one side of the planter to the other to even out the amount of seed in the individual planters.  After riding and talking for a little over half an hour, Denny nonchalantly stops the tractor in the middle of the field, gets out of his seat, and says “Ok, your turn.” I was immediately dumfounded because there was absolutely no warning.  He did not preface the move with anything at all.  At first, I had a little trouble with following the line and overcorrecting, but I eventually got the hang of it. Apparently, Denny’s allowing me to drive the tractor is a big deal.  Dr. HN wasn’t allowed until he was 52 years old, so I have thirty years on him.  I have to start somewhere, right?

I drove this!

I drove this one too!

View from the tractor.

Denny clearing out one of the planters.

The planter rig with 16 individual planters.

*By the way, check out Hagie’s awesome promotional video for its chemical applicator/sprayer.