It's early....and really green from all the rain, but I have been to a couple of fires
already this summer. The first one was at my good friend John Fulton's down near The Dalles. This is looking west towards the The Dalles with Mt Hood in the background. In the foreground you can see The Dalles Dam through the smoke. The fire started from a vehicle fire on I-84 near the dam and spread up over the hill towards John's wheat. The good news is that his crop was too green (thanks to all the rain) to burn. The usual good turn out of volunteer's, plus the local fire units, got this one out before it could do too much damage:



Had another one last week, again started off I-84. This one raced by the terminal
elevator at Biggs, Oregon ( just east of The Dalles) that belongs to Mid Columbia
Producers. No damage to the elevator, but operations were curtailed as a precaution; they didn't want to risk any hot embers around the grain dust:

All the rain has really delayed the crop....but unlike NIF (sorry about the rust & other problems dude) the rain here has been a Goldilocks deal..... ( not too little, not too much, but just right) and the crops look great. Normally they would be cutting now down near The Dalles......maybe by the end of this next week. As for my own wheat.......looks like it will set a record......and it will be early August before it is ready to cut:

With all the rain delays, I have had some time to shoot some other stuff........like this one of Bambi, plus Mom & Dad in our back yard. Hundreds of acres of CRP acres to munch on, but NOOOOOOOOO.......they have to come in the yard on work over the wife's flowers. It's like we are running some sort of salad bar for the deer:



I was out spraying some Canada Thistle last Saturday ( damn I hate those things)
Grabbed this shot of the 'ol homestead.....looking north with Mt Adams (left)
and Mt Rainier (right) in the background. As you can see, I need to take some of this years crop and buy some shingles ( like enough to do the whole roof)

Yeah, late is a common word around here too. We finally got done baling first cutting alfalfa yesterday and stacked up most of these 3x3x8's to haul into the shed. A few were baled up small for the horsey people. Normally we would be in the thick of bluegrass combining and straw baling but that will commence shortly. Six elk trudged through here the other morning...just like they owned the place. 98J, your wheat looks great and imagine you are getting a little giddy to get at it. Nice exposures on those last ones.

98j- great shots as usual, was wondering how things were going over there..glad to hear the rain made good wheat over there, are you still going to be running the 1670 this harvest?

Know what you mean about the canada thistle and deer both...this is the time of year we spend spot spraying the thistles both in the fields and especially in the pasture out back. Deer and elk loving eating the lentils this time of year..everyone who hunts on our property agrees that we raise some of the best tasting deer in the country!

No fires here yet, still a bit too green (note the neighbors field of summer fallow down on the flat...several guys ended up leaving fallow around here instead of risking a June seeding.




Bleedinred- all the bluegrass is swathed around here but no combines running yet...all the hay on our ground is cut but not all baled yet.

Time for a few more cat pics... been plowing and disking CRP takeout ground, it is slow work since the old 8 bottom plow is only 12ft wide and is a very high maintenance item especially with the rocks in our soil. Greasing the old plow is a chore too..50 places to grease on the plow every 10 hours.

The D6C is overpowered for this plow but back when we bought it was all the D6B could do to pull it...with the B we used to spend all day in 1st and 2nd when plowing in tough conditions but the C will take it in 6th.







No uphill plowing required on this ground (No CSP) but we still plowed it inside out to counteract all the round and round plowing done in the past.



Next comes the D4D and disk to chop the sod some...going to wait awhile for the second pass since it usually works better after sitting for a bit.

NIF A guy could comb his hair in those molboards. Does that ground fall apart after it has been plowed?? Tad

Hi NIF How many years has the land bean in CRP . After the plough i cannot see many rocks or stones in your pctures. A farmers dream in my book cheers Atlas

One more question to Bleedinred. How many cuts do you have in a season .is irrigation involved. What is the life span of alf alfa crops in your area. yield per cut and price per ton according to different qualities. The only experience i have had with alf alfa is in the Sacramento valley flood irrigated. cheers Atlas

Tad- yep gotta love the look of nice shiny moldboards

The pic of the ground after the plow pics shows how it looks, big lumps of sod mostly that doesnt fall apart easy, the last pic shows after disking...still some sod but more dirt. Our ground behaves very differently when wet versus dry

Shown dry plowing after harvest in 07 for quack grass control, our clay turns into clods when dry



With just the right amount of moisture it turns out with just a few clods but when really wet it is smooth after plowing but doesnt work up good in the spring.

Just right for plowing later on in fall of 07



I forgot to mention that all our plows here are onland so no driving tilted over in the furrow



and the bigger ones like our 8 bottom are flex-back so it acts like two smaller plows hooked together.

5 bottoms on the front 3 behind





Atlas- it was in CRP for ten years. The pics dont show it but there are plenty of rocks on this ground though the rockiest spots were left in CRP. Back in the 30s when my family owned the ground one field (now remaining in CRP) was so bad with rocks that the 3 bottom 16" plow (trip hitch) tripped over 100 times on 9 acres.