Summer's here!

Down on the farm we have a different definition for the seasons.  Spring is planting, Fall is harvesting, Winter is between harvesting and planting, and Summer is between planting and harvesting. Well ... except for wheat.  Wheat harvest is a Spring/Summer event and wheat planting is a Fall event. What that means is it isn't Summer until the wheat is harvested and the planting is done.

Summer's here!

Well .. maybe.  We still have that one wet spot to plant we may try this week. If we get it done, great.  If not, so what?  As Dad would say, if that is all that's between us and being broke we're broke already.

So now summer work begins.  One thing we have to do is get some lime spread.  The field east of Milo and Lenore's hasn't been "right" for a couple years. The wheat looked terrible this winter.  Yield was OK considering the season we have had. Actually better then  expected.  This Spring we had Pro-Ag come in and pull some soil samples. The results really surprised us.

The ph is averaging about 5.0.  Should be 6.0-6.5  It was such a surprise to us because any soil sample I've ever pulled has been 7.0 to as high as 7.7! So we need to get some lime applied.

A bright spot was the phosphate level.  It was actually high!

Now for today's fun.  I started Lyman's south irrigator up last week to find the middle tower would not move.  That ended up taking a whole day to diagnose, remove the motor, take it to the motor shop, fix it and reinstall it.  Then it rained.  They pulled tassels so I started it up yesterday just to get a bit ahead watering.  It made it's half circle, watered the dry corner, and I reversed it and sped it up to park it. I of course mis-judged the time necessary and it went to far.  So about 9:30 last night I reversed it again and sat back in the truck to wait.  After about 5 minutes I thought "That doesn't seem to be moving"

Further investigation proved I was unfortunately correct.  And since I was in my "church clothes" from helping with the kids on Wednesday night church I just shut it down and came home.  So my morning priority is getting that moving.  Because the pullers will be back this morning to go through the field again.  They're going to enjoy where that system sat for at least 20 minutes not moving.

I just hope I don't find something like this we found last year on the same system.  That motor and gear box are supposed to be n the same side of the frame as the wheels.  The motor in this photo is also the one I had to repair last week.

There is a definite design  flaw in that gearbox mount.

Oh! How do I know it was less than 20 minutes?  Actually that is assuming something else was working.  Tower 2 has a timer on.  It resets every time the tower moves.  If it doesn't move for 20 minutes the timer shuts the system down because something is not working right.  Or that is not working as well which means something else to fix.

I am beginning to understand what Scot said when he told me one time "I wake up, I work on irrigators, I go to sleep."  He never mentioned a bed.