Fresh Fields

August… Another hectic month with the harvest season in full swing.

The 1st week saw me harvesting my crop of Sorghum in field 1…

…and then sowing Canola in field 2. I took a couple of small harvesting jobs for neighbours before finishing off the week by applying the roller to field 2…

…to consolidate the soil around the seed.

The second week saw me take on a very large harvesting job of Sorghum over near the sawmill…

…I was back and forth to the Grain Trans siloes all week, using the track beside the railway…

…This was a very lucrative job – over €3k in contract fee, another €900 in bonus harvest and there was still nearly 1000l of sorghum left in the harvester after the job was complete that I could add to my harvest back in my own silo😎👌

The 3rd week of August and I had to make a choice on what to do with field 1. I could prepare the field for sowing Winter Wheat in September or I could press ahead and immediately sow Canola. I chose to do the latter. The advantage of this is that my two smallest fields, 1 & 2, will produce the same crop, making the harvest more worthwhile…

…The Zetor carried out the sowing and rolling…

I will have to spray fertilizer twice on field 1, coordinating one of those with the single spreading that I need to do on field 2. The crops should become ready to harvest 2 to 4 weeks apart next July/August.

The start of the 4th week of August marked the start of my second year on this farm. A time to review what has been achieved: –

Created a small grass field in a derelict area.
Purchased haymaking equipment and roller.
Purchased additional tractor (Zetor 6245) with front loading capability.
Replaced old Vistula harvester with new Claas Dominator 85.
Bought larger trailer.
Built new shed to store machinery.
Purchased Field 14.

That’s quite a lot in a year though it’s obviously easier starting with some basic equipment and 3 fields on a medium difficulty level. It’s time to plan for the future. My highest priority now is to replace the Massey Ferguson 178 tractor – I really need a more powerful 4WD machine to handle the ploughing and hauling the trailer/baler. I have a tractor in mind and it will cost around €55k. I’d like to get into harvesting Sunflowers and Corn – for that I’d need a corn header at €17k. I’ll need to see what harvesting jobs are on offer this autumn as buying the header will delay buying the tractor and I might be best waiting another year. Finally, I want to continue expanding the farm. My initial target is field 40 which will cost just over €60k. Ultimately, I’d like to have a farm of around 8 fields; 4 small and 4 largeish ones. That should be manageable for my one-man-band play style.

Anyway – enough of the future, on with the now and the 4th week of August. More harvesting work for my neighbours. The Wheat…

…and Oats are now ripe…

…and I’m enjoying the massed ranks of Sunflowers – still following the Sun’s daily passage…

…😊👍