I am writing this at the start of the week with a head full of what needs to occur. We are basically 4 weeks away from sowing and there is alot to be done in that time.
However, I am feeling refreshed. I took the weekend off. Dan and I, along with two other men from Church, headed off to a Christian Mens Convention in Katoomba, NSW. I mention this because:
a) I really enjoyed it and felt recharged from the weekend,
and
b) to make the point that, if you never get off your farm, it is very easy to become isolated – an island.
As a farmer, we can spend all day, every day by ourselves. And often when that occurs, troubles seem larger than they are. Things get skewed and whats really important gets missed. The daily internet weather map becomes more important than talking with your family and friends.
I really encourage all farmers to remain connected with others. For me, I rely on faith in God, love of my family and the friendship of my church to keep my head in the right space. I have seen too many self reliant farmers trying to battle through on their own and it just doesn’t work. Depression and suicide are real dangers in our farming communities. So take care of yourselves and your families.
So, enough of the preaching. Whats happening on the farm?
Today I actually sprayed with the FWA tractor and boom without getting bogged!! I wasn’t sure if I could lift the boom high enough to get over some of the weeds. I didn’t know if I should spray the weeds or chop them down and use them for fence posts – ha ha. Wow, have they grown over the last few weeks!!
We had another flat tyre on the NH T9 tractor (so its just as well that I didn’t get stuck in the mud as I would have had nothing to pull me out) and the local NH dealership came out to do a factory rebuild of its parking brake assembly. I then went to town for chemicals and Dan dealt with some rust at the outlet of one of our fertiliser silos, followed by some welding. That reminds me, my Lincoln 255c MIG welder broke on friday 🙁 So its at the repair shop and we are back to using the old faithful stick welder.
Tomorrow I have 80 tonne of MAP fertiliser arriving by trucks at 7:30am to be augered into our fert silos , more spraying to do and Dan will start on the air seeder maintenance jobs. There is more rain forecast later in the week, so we will get as much done as we can before that.
Anyway, I will let you know how that goes. I’m sure it won’t go to plan – it never does. 😉
NeilK