fall break

        Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a great week! We had fall break this week and I was lucky enough to get the chance to go home on Wednesday.  Since we had that cool snap come in earlier last week it really had me missing home. There is no greater feeling than coming home to the farm and seeing everything ahead of schedule and almost complete.
         I finally got to see the new hipper roller in action. I didn't think it would make that much of a difference in the moving of it or opperation of it clearly I underestimated the situation.  The hipper roller weighs so much that the tractor actually needs more weight added to the front of it to keep it held down when the hipper is not in the ground.  The fact that it weighs so much and rises up makes for one scary ride!  Daddy tried to warn me before we got on that it was going to do it but I had no clue it was going to raise up as much as it did.  I would guess that it would probably raise about 3 ft in the air every time maybe not that much but it sure felt like it.
        According to my dad it couldn't flip because the hipper would catch its self and push it back forward to the ground. It wasn't until this afternoon that I finally witnessed what was really going on from outside of the cab.  My dad was driving and turned off the blacktop road on to the turn row to enter the field.  As my dad was turning the tractor i saw it get off balanced  and rock backwards.  Obviously i freaked out and told daddy he needs to get that weight put on sooner rather than later since he almost gave me a heart attack, of course he just laughed since he knew what he was doing.  
     On a more positive note we have only 300 acres left to row up and its all sandy ground so that can be done anytime.  Its great news because that means we wont be working during gun season this year.  The deer are starting to move with the weather getting colder, i actually counted  17 just from my back yard and 4 of which were bucks. I cant wait until next week hopefully we will be completely done with the fieldwork for the year!

catching up

Hello everyone, its been a while since I have had time to post!  Back home at the farm we have finished the harvest and already pulled soil samples for this year.  We had to apply a little bit of lime to a few fields.  Almost all of our fields have been disked, sub soiled and ready to be rowed up and rolled. We had a half-inch rain this weekend it was the first rain in about 3 weeks.  This was very helpful with the dust that was literally covering everything since all the equipment had turned the dirt roads into a fine powder.  

We recently just purchased a new hipper roller that is designed to do twelve rows at a time, which is an upgrade from our eight row hipper roller. Unfortunately since it rained we didn't get to test it this weekend but once everything dries up we will get to. I hope that we can get all of our fall fieldwork done before the wet season sets in. The more work that is done now saves you in the spring so you can plant as soon as possible.

Back at home everyone around is beginning to start picking cotton since we don’t grow cotton anymore this is kind of a special time to me. Seeing everyone start picking reminds me of when I was little and would come home from school, run back out the door to go work with daddy.  My job was I got to spray the modules with our farm name and the number.  I didn't get to do very much but I always had fun and fell in love with the smell of the cotton being ready to harvest.   Not many people get the chance to be involved with farming like I did, it makes me very thankful that I got the opportunity to have such great childhood memories with it. 

First Home Game

I hope all of my followers had a fantastic weekend.  This was Mississippi States first home game of the 2013 football season we won 51-7.  I saw many of my classmates there but I know several people didn't get the chance to come because they had bigger obligations to take care of.  Back at our farm we began the soybean harvest for the year.  Its always a slow process to get started, something always has to break right off the bat.  The equipment sits up all year long and is only used a few weeks out of the year so it has to be serviced up.  Our neighbors that we work with during harvest actually bought a new combine this year to help avoid some of this problem. The results that I have received from home have been pretty decent over all for this years crop.  On our farm our beans were dry land beans and for the most part we averaged over 80 bu/A.  I know one field was averaging 88 bu/a this number is higher than the national average. Last year our farms dry land beans averaged 56 due to the lack of rainfall. 

Every year we try to produce a better yielding crop than the year before to make a better profit.  This is the main goal with farming always do your best and try to do better than you have before.  The weather can and will make this process difficult sometimes and ultimately leaves the results out of your hands. Farming is a gamble basically because you are never guaranteed a great outcome.

This time of year is my personal favorite because the days are long and super busy which is how I like to be.  The satisfaction of knowing what you have worked all year towards is safely stored in the elevator is such a relief.  The one of a kind delta sunsets at the end of the day across the field  definitely help relieve the stress of the farming life.  Here are a few pictures from this weekends harvest I hope by the end of this semester y'all will at least develop the interest in the love for farming and photography that I have.

This is after half the field was cut.

We ran 4 combines but the John deere is the newest addition to Martin Farms.

Just a picture of them dumping our beans.

This is a picture I took last year (notice watermark) I entered it in a contest.  It may not show up very well on here but on the computer you can see all the dust particles falling it looked like it was snowing. 

Labor Day Weekend

As I'm sure most of y'all know this past weekend was Labor Day weekend.  For many people that means a day off of work during the regular "work week" but for farmers its just another day most of the time. In farming  you have to work when the weather allows you to no matter what if you want to get your crop out on time.   This past weekend on our family farm L & R Farms we completed the last day of corn harvest and started preparing for next years crop. You will see me post several pictures and I will include the location on them but most will generally be from my farm in Onward, MS.  While the combines finished up the last field I began to start cutting stalks down with our blazer.  The next step will be to disk the ground and pull soil samples depending on the results will determine if we need to do anything for next year.  Here are some pictures I took over the weekend I hope you enjoy!

This was from inside of the tractor,  we have Caterpillar tractors with tracks instead of tires.

This is a shot from the back view of the tractor, the blazer at work.

Sunday was also the opening of dove season and we went hunting in the same field i had just cut stalks in the day before, I actually had left a few rounds  standing for the hunt.  The hunt was unsuccessful but the sunset was beautiful! hope y'all  enjoyed this post!

A new beginning

Hey y'all,  my name is Victoria Darden I am currently an Agriculture Science student at Mississippi State University.  I am taking a Computer class that requires us to make a blog. I have a major interest in Photography especially of Delta landscapes and landmarks so this has been my inspiration for my blog. I will post several of my own pictures and include a brief description of  where its from and why I chose it I hope you will follow my blog and enjoy it!