So that incubator action isn't penning out quite right yet (but will be continued and improved) but  I bought chicks at Orschelns'.  A mixed box layers hompers and fryers.  Well there are a bunch of those Cornish Cross white chickens in the mix and they make you realize that evolution can be reversed.   They have the personality of a box sand, when they do try to fly they look like bricks with wings and they eat so much and grow so fast that they fall over like a two year old with D cups.  They'll be good eating and riddance in a couple of weeks.  By the way, when you buy chicken meat in the store that is what you buy.  They make a great case for vegan. 

So Dylan is going to market on Saturday, which it is today  (As is the Queen's birthday in Holland, she celebrates hers 4 days after mine).  Anyway, Dylan is out there harvesting  lettuce, washing it and than  putting it in the spinner to dry.  It looks painful to me so I casually ask Vincent: "hey, you wouldn't happen to have an industrial size vegetable spinner now would you?".     Oh, says V:" I got one laying around at the farm".  "Great, can we go and get it now?"

So it really is a glorified washing machine.  By the time Vince and I were done with it, all safety features had been bypassed professionally, leaks plugged and rat nests removed.  By that time Dylan was of course long done with his work but still, next time I'll put the spin on you.

The tornado that took out St. Louis airport actually started right here.  Had this really nice high tunnel with brandspanking new plastic.  The plastic put up a heroic battle, but it did let 50 goals in.  Hail the size of tennis balls. Iddacouddakilldja.

So Dylan is on this organic kick... (and he is right to be) and it interferes with the quality of my sleep.  I'll come home from the night shift, stumble into bed and then I dream I am on the beach walking and I can distinctly smell fish.  And then I wake up, and I distinctly smell fish, rather it smells like a a tuna that has been in the sun too long.    Yup, Dylan is at it again, fertilizing the plants with the nitrogen rich fish emulsion, all the way organic. 
 
  

Sometimes you are right and you wish you weren't.  Case in point: I explained to Dylan that I was not procrastinating when I started seeds in the greenhouse.  I actually tried to convince myself too that I wasn't procrastinating, but that this was a well thought out upper management decision regarding timing and planning.   So I was right, with the fields being as wet as they are we can't put any transplants in the ground any time soon and it is a good thing we didn't start two weeks earlier.  Hopefully I procrastinated long enough. 

So papa is still in the hospital, 78 yrs old, got one bypass and a new aortic cowvalve, and here we are trying to hatch some chickens again.  Well, they are on the dot, started March 26th and exactly 3 weeks later they will start hatching.  Peep peep, from in the egg. Other news: Dylan ordered some compost, next thing you know there is a 50 cubic yard pile here, 25 bucks a yard, delivered, ouch. Got some onions planted yesterday, about 1500 plants.  When you put them in the ground with 4 people it doesn't take any time flat. 

Straight rows are highly overrated. I am going for the genderly challenged rows.  Rows that converge and run into each other, of different length and depth and color.  Of course this is reverse psychology, the intent is of course to have perfect, parallel straight rows ((just don't tell the tractor)).  

St. Patricks day had come and gone, with standing water in the field, but April 8th was just dry enough on the edge of the field to get them ya taters in the ground.  They are covered about 2 inches deep on a rowspacing of approximately 39 inches, except where I goofed up and they for half a row they are at 3 foot apart.  I tried to blame Dylan's DWI tractor driving but he wouldn't have any of that.  I hate that when you blame someone else in good faith and clear convcition and with a lot of venom in your words only to realize that you have just shrunk 3 foot and can now only kiss ass to the person you just burnt.  So the equipment used is a Massey, a home made toolbar, an 1890ies horse drawn tobacco transplanter and the usual suspects. 

It is hard to live in the fast lane in Hermann.  Really, but once in a while my young blood gets to a medium boil and I 'll give it a whirl.  So here is my latest  attempt at "living in the fast lane" on the tractor.  Big fat disappointment that was.  Nothing a jack and some pieces of wood and a big wrench couldn't fix, so Massey is sitting in the field chomping at the bit to get some planting done.    (memo to self: check nuts and bolts before mounting)