Improvements

We have been trying to prepare for the fall crop on top of everything else that has to be done around here.  We didn’t get as much of a break as we normally do in the summer, because of the way everything worked out this time around.  We had to replant sweet potatoes, so that wasn’t finished until early July.  We also waited on rain to plant our soybeans so they were about two weeks later than normal.  We got to sneak away for a couple of days to go on a camping trip and then it was right back to business.  Because of the lack of rain some of the Dairy’s corn has ripened earlier than expected.  That means everyone is working on cutting silage.  This past Saturday, we did get to start on our improvement project.  My husband worked on smoothing out the pad that the trailers sit on and making room for the third trailer.  We also will be pushing them back some, so that we have more room to park and unpack trailers.  It will also be graveled so that it will be easier to maintain.  I am all for anything that makes my yard look better.  The next step is to put the trailers back and bring home the third trailer.  Each year we have been trying to improve the sweet potato operation.  Last year we added a HVAC unit to our insulated trailer, power/ water to the trailers, and a packing shed.  This year, we have a lot of plans, so hopefully we can accomplish them all.  We are adding a third storage trailer and lights to two trailers.  We actually pack potatoes in the trailers, so lights are going to be a great addition.  The third trailer is going to help us be able to store more potatoes.  Last year, we struggled with storage and we actually had less potatoes than we should have had.  If we have an awesome crop this year then two trailers are just not going to hold them all.  We have to have a place to cure our potatoes so that they will last much longer.  The hope is that this year is going to go even more smoothly than last year.  Our first year was a huge learning experience and our second year just went so much better.  The goal would be for this year to get even better.  Sweet potatoes are still a few weeks off, but the time will be here before we know it.  The first thing that will be ready will be our corn.  We always bag some corn in bags for deer hunters.  We have started getting calls for corn, so we will be harvesting it as early as we possibly can.  I do plan to update soon, because we have tons of things happening right now.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

After publishing my last blog post, I decided I wanted to say something more positive than before.  Only I can’t really do that without still discussing some negative, so I decided I would talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly.  To start with the good, wow have I had a lot of good even awesome things happen in the last month.  First of all I am out for the summer.  Oh how I love being out, I get to spend time with my wild boys, I don’t have to set an alarm, and I can help my hubby.  It can’t get much better.  I’ve spent a lot of time just being lazy and doing nothing.  We have caught a couple of movies and explored.  We got away for a couple of days by going camping at the beach.  So for the bad, the weather has been rocky this summer.  Now it has rained and it has rained more than last year, it just hasn’t rained when and how we needed it.  It stopped raining in the first of May and it didn’t start back until the first of July.  So that means our corn just isn’t as great as we wanted it to be.  That is why I can say bad, because it really isn’t terrible.  Our crop will be way better than it was last year.  It is not what we wanted, but it also will be so much better this time around.  Now for the ugly, we lost about 80% of the sweet potatoes we planted at the first of June.  They just burnt up in the 95 degree weather.  It was pretty devastating, but even with the loss, it is going to be alright.  Somehow God just keeps looking out for us.  We had planted a ton of extra slips with the plans of selling them.  With everything that was going on, we just never got them cut and dropped off at the stores.  I never got anything posted on any websites, so luckily we had the slips to replant our crop.  And at the beginning of July it started raining, so we replanted.  Somehow we came up with the money to pay the labor and boom we were back in business.  Like everything in farming, we are still going to have some issues.  For one thing, we had to just plant whatever we had where ever it needed to go.  What that means is we were trying to keep our different generations of plants separated.  We had some that were replants from ours and some that we had bought to be first generation plants.  The plan was to keep new plants rotating through so that our potatoes don’t get diseased.  That part is frustrating, but it is nothing we can’t fix next year.  The other downside to how we replanted is that we are going to have potatoes with all different sizes.  The 20% of plants that were there first are almost ready and the replants will not be ready for another month.  So we are going to have lots of different sized potatoes.  The crazy part is now we are getting lots of rain, so I am excited to see what kind of crop we end up with.  Overall I feel so much better than I did last year.  I added in a picture from the beach and another one of our little helpers.