Tuesday, January 21st...

Not a lot of new news to report.  Snow removal, cleaning up fall machinery, paperwork and the occasional hauling of grain has been the excitement of our work since the 1st of the year; mostly the paperwork and meetings have consumed our time.  The weather has been fickle with one day being warm, the next day being snowy and the following day sub-zero.  During the last stretch of sub-zero weather we discovered that mice had chewed through all the insulation between the outer wall of our shop and the bathroom. This made for frozen pipes. Recently, David has renovated the bathroom and added better insulation, new inner walls and a fresh coat of paint.  

We have finalized our 2014 crop plans and will stick with those plans unless the markets indicate to us to plant more corn or more soybean acres.  At the moment our crop rotation keeps us in same mix of corn to soybeans as we had last year.  One new crop we will be trying this year is nonGMO soybeans.  We have not grown nonGMO soybeans since the release of the RoundUp Ready trait technology.  We are targeting some of our lowest weed pressure fields with a goal of keeping those fields spotless.  There is a nice premium for these nonGMO beans, but with a premium come challenges of making sure both the planters and combines are cleaned out before entering these fields to ensure purity.  

Stay warm!

February 1914 - my Great Grandfather, William R. Walbaum on the far left leaning against the snow drift.  This was snow removal back then.  The picture was taken about a mile from the original homestead.  Neighbors helping each other out.

Since I am currently trying to sell our moldboard plows, I thought it was funny to include a picture of when we utilized these tillage tools.  This was our primary tillage program back in the 80's.  Uncle Bob operating the tractor on the Gooden field.