“Plant in the dust; bins will bust.”

An old adage states the following: “Plant in the dust and your bins will bust.”  We shall see!  It is dry here in central Iowa as we begin the spring planting season.  The last couple of weeks preparations have been made so the planter was ready to roll on Saturday!

The steers in the open lot were keeping an eye on the guys as they prepared the planter for the field.

Shane, our helpful technology person that assists us with the GPS and Precision Planting programs, walks Jacob through some of the program updates.  He has been here a few times. The other night when we went out for the nine o’clock calf feeding he was still working and said that it was still early as he didn’t get home until 11:30 p.m. the other night!  (Top left picture shows the GPS magnet was on my frig. since being removed from the combine last fall.  At least I knew where it was when I was asked to bring it outside the other day! If you look closely you can see it in the pictures of the tractor in the field.)

Plant 2016 officially began Saturday as Jacob began planting “the bottom”.  The pressure was on for straight rows as this field can be viewed from Grandpa and Grandma Van’s kitchen table.  Jacob did have a co-pilot!  Oh, those were the days!

A couple of weeks ago we were able to put on some anhydrous.  Jacob was hooking up this equipment.  I had a good view as I was in charge of washing the windows!  I thought it was interesting watching him call his father for instructions; finally, putting him on speaker phone so he could use both hands.

Friday, April 15, Jacob used a different corn planter to plant J and E’s Delicious Sweet Corn.

On  Easter Sunday, March 27, we began our new rotation of calves.  Grandpa Van made the final trip Saturday for the last calves for this group.  Snickers likes to welcome the new calves each day!  For the most part, everyone is drinking milk on their own.  The other day I was helping a new calf and one calf thought he needed more milk and was trying to help himself from the big bucket.  The lower right picture is a picture of a different looking calf!  In the upper left picture those are calf coats on the clothesline.  In January – February every calf in the calf barn had a coat!  Now – I am happy to say – each and every one of them has been washed and put away in storage containers for next winter!

Snickers doesn’t go too far without a ball!  She was trying to rest in the calf barn the other day when a calf begin licking her head.  A small hole in the wall of the calf barn provides Snickers a “peek hole” to see what else is going on around the farm.

As everyone is busy – food needs to be quick and somewhat healthy!  My sister-in-law, Kelli, gave me this recipe for easy, healthy chocolate cake a couple of years ago.  I have made this a few times in the last few weeks.  It is so easy!  Here is the recipe!

CHOCOLATE CAKE

1 box chocolate cake mix (I use Devils’ Food or Milk Chocolate.)

1 cup water

1 cup vanilla Greek Yogurt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the three ingredients together and place in a greased 9×13 pan for 30 minutes. For a fancy look you may use two round pans. Bake according to directions on cake mix.

For topping mix one small box white chocolate pudding and one cup of milk. Let set and fold in 1- 8 oz. container of Cool Whip. (You can use sugar free pudding and lite Cool Whip.)

Spread on cooled cake and garnish with strawberries.

(We usually run out of strawberries before the cake is gone. It is good without the strawberries too!)

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Well, I better find something for supper to go with dessert!  It has been warm again today!  I ran Jacob out some corn this afternoon and helped him fill the planter.  I forgot to bring him something to drink and I definitely think those seed corn bags are heavier than they were twenty years ago!

Take care,

Julie