Leaderboard

Interesting, yes. I thought I missed cause he was right over a rock wall and all I had was his head, so I ran over to check cause another bird was comin hard, carried him back pulled decoys and sat down, the other bird came out 5 mins later. I hunted all morning sat, struck up 8 gobblers, 2 came in and different times, saw the Jake decoy and bolted. Gonna bring a youth hunter to that spot Sunday,

This is looking like it’s going to be a tough year for apple tree pollination. We used to have quite a few Cortlands, in an orchard my grandfather had planted on our farm right after WW 2, but they’re all gone now. I’m not even sure what kind of apples the two trees I have now are, but at least one of them (that I bought from tractor supply) is a later ripening variety and not as tasty. I think I got the other one from Walmart, and it finally produced its first apples last season. I trimmed both of them early this spring and they were both loaded with blossoms. I’ve never sprayed either of them, but I planned to this year, after the blossoms are gone. I probably will spray them, at least up to “June drop”, anyhow, since I’ve already bought the spray. If all the apples on them drop off, I’ll stop. They both look pretty good and should soon be getting into the prime years of production. Quite a few years ago, when our kids were still young, my wife coaxed me into killing all the honey bees, that had made a hive in an old whiskey barrel, that was outside next to the barn. We still had a few Cortlands then and they produced much better on the year those bees moved in. There was quite a drop off the year after she got me to kill those bees. I’ve got neighbors with hives on both sides of me now, so if the weather would just cooperate a little, we should be able to get at least some halfway decent production from those new trees. I’ve never eaten an apple from either one of them (just took a bite or two from the buggy ones that were never sprayed from the first one). The deer definitely seem to like them though. Unfortunately, they are right next to the road. A nice buck got killed by a car and laid right under one in the morning a few years ago. I didn’t see it in the dark and someone stopped and cut off its rack while I was at work that day. Not sure how big the rack was but looked to be at least a 3.5 year old, based on the size of the body.

MUD FARMING 101: I definitely picked the right year to sell one of my old 2 wheel drive tractors. That 1951 Ford 8n, originally purchased by my old neighbor from Yoder brothers in Clarence ctr, would have struggled on the half acre that I plowed up for sweetcorn the other day, with all the wet spots. We towed it over to my buddy’s place with his truck on Saturday, after we got back from fishing. My wife had taken my pickup truck, on her annual Ohio shopping spree, so we needed his truck to get my boat to the lake. That old Ford tractor had quit on me, early last summer, with an unknown “no-spark” issue. My 5 year newer Farmall Cub exhibited a similar issue, while I was plowing snow with it, in January. It’s just too difficult for me to keep two of those old non John Deere tractors operational, while I still have a full time job. I was going to push the Ford into a corner of my barn, and let it sit there about (5) years until I retire. My buddy wanted it, to leave down at his southern tier camp, for hauling logs for milling. He said he has it running already. I gave him a new coil that I had bought for it, and a new wiring harness and a bunch of other spare parts, including a new rear rim. Amazon had accidentally shipped me two of of those, when I ordered 1, a few years ago. Oddly enough, that old Ford plowed the best that it ever did last spring, with just one loaded rear tire (on the sod side). It also has a worn out brake on the other side, from about 75 years of riding that, to compensate for the traction differential when both rears were loaded. Towing it about 5 miles to my buddy’s place was fun. The left front wheel would start shimmying pretty good at about 17 mph, and just one working brake made slowing down a little dicey. There’s an “s” curve, on the road thru the swamp, which has claimed a few lives when folks took it too fast with their cars. There were some buzzards circling over that curve, as I was towed thru it. I wasn’t quite quick enough with my phone to get a picture of them (plus I really needed both hands on the wheel to keep control thru that curve). That old Ford still has all (4) original tires on it, original paint, had always been stored inside, and only has 2100 hours on the proofmeter. I didn’t include the 2x12 plow, that came with it on the deal, but I let my buddy borrow it whenever he needs it. That plow is a little on the small side for my 4wd JD 4120, but smaller implements work a lot better than big ones on my mucky bottomland farm, especially on a wet spring like we are getting now. It’s pretty cool watching the wakes roll off the moldboards, when I pull it thru standing water, without even getting any wheel spin. I’m hoping to use my Dodge Durango field car, which has Cooper with good deep tread on it, for most of the disking, and much of cultipacking (until I get my Farmall Cub back from the mechanics) later this year. I think my 8 ft pull type disk should be just about perfect behind that. I’ll need a longer control rope to reach the front seat of the 4 door suv, with the hatchback open. No problem keeping the hatch back up, because The AC don’t work on it anyhow, but the Pioneer stereo still works great. It was still a little too wet to try it on the first pass with the dusk, on that plowed half acre, this week. I had to use my 4wd JD 4120 tractor again. That tractor has R1 tires and a loader on it, that I could use to pull myself out with, if I ever did loose traction in the mud. That JD 4120 could easily handle a 10 foot disk, but again, a small implement is way better in wet conditions. My 8 ft JD disk has good cleaners on it, so it does pretty good in wet conditions. I’m still aiming to get half of my sweetcorn planted, and maybe my fieldcorn ground plowed, by the end of May.