For a farmer, spring is hope. No matter how poorly last year’s crop grew, despite the prices at the grain elevator, and against the odds of droughts, hail, insects, flood, and other calamities, we put seeds in the ground.
Last week Daddy showed up in the field that is our front yard (at bedtime, please ignore the pajama-clad kids) to plant the first test rows.
He drove the tractor a few yards into the field and stopped to see how the planter was working.
Daddy looks in the rows created by the planter to see how deep the seeds are, how close together they fell into the ground, if there are spaces where the planter skipped seeds or dropped a double.
Daddy has invested equipment from a company called Precision Planting that creates add-ons for your tractor and planter to ensure that every seed is placed as precisely as possible. For crops like corn, that can make an impact.
He’s also checking to see if the wheels on the back of the planter are doing a good job covering the seeds back up with soil. If you look carefully at the above photo you’ll notice one round, black wheel paired with one spiky looking one.
The ground was too wet to use the spiky wheels, so Daddy had to take the planter back to the shed and changed each spike wheel to a matching black one.
When he came back the next morning I was able to grab a few pics of him unfolding the planter. This piece of machinery is 60 feet wide and couldn’t possibly get down the road like that!
This planter folds in three places, with the two side sections bending forward to align next to the bar that pulls it behind the tractor.
The sections swing out and the bar that pulls behind the tractor actually shortens to give more control while Daddy is driving.
When the sections lock into place its ready, planting more hope in the ground as it goes.
Daddy's Tractor 