Pastor Don's Ponderings

Just the sight of Fall tillage makes me smile. Anyone connected with farming smells a picture like this as much as we view it, maybe more than we want to admit. There is something about ground being opened in the Fall, something about the manner in which soil rolls around the tillage tool, something in the sound of the tractor pulling the tool and something in the sound of dirt opening and closing behind you which makes a farmer's heart happy . . . and the smell, the smell of Fall time tillage is luxuriant.  Fall tillage is essential for the coming crop year. Though not every acre of soil can be tilled in the Fall, due to erosion risk and crop history, those acres which can be tilled, weather permitting, are often done at something of an angle to the planting direction to facilitate cutting through layers of compaction. Yet, more than that, deep Fall tillage buries some of the refuse from the previous years crop, allowing for a more rapid rotting of the plant into needed hum...

One day last Fall I had the opportunity to ride a few rounds in the combine with my brother, Larry, as he clipped off another field. For those who are not accustomed to such a sight, this is a soybean field and we are sitting in the cab of the farm's John Deere combine. What you see in front of you near the ground is the header of the machine, the reel turns in a forward fashion bringing the standing crop into the header, which then moves it back into the rotary separator in the largest portion of the combine. The soybeans, once separated from the stalk and pod of the plants, will then move by way of the clean grain auger into the hopper on top of the machine and the residue of the soybean plant will be chopped and scattered behind the machine. It is really something to watch, especially when you can do it up close from in the cab sitting next to the operator. A ride with Larry in the fields is seldom just a ride. The cab is his office for a large amount of time in Fall, so as...