Field Day

I mentioned at the close of yesterday that I was expecting a big day today. I was up an hour before my alarm, which was odd cause it was the first time I’d set my alarm in many, many moons, maybe since the start of the original lockdown. I showered, dressed and packed up a lot of gear to be ready for all weather situations. I was going to get to work outside for part of the day. The most time I’d spent outside my house in a long time. I had been invited to come help with a plot. We were going to put it in old school. I stopped and got myself a rare McBreakfast, rare because it included a bagel, which they had taken off the menu for a time. I stopped to pick up some supplies. I was told what to get but not necessarily how much of the items to get. The overall plan was shared with me, but not really the specifics. The planter didn’t have GPS and we were going to be doing a replicated trial so we’d need to measure out some stuff and have a lot of markings. It was around a ninety minute drive for me to get there and I was the first one to arrive. BDP was right on my heels and we started getting things setup right away. The planter showed up not long after and then Brack. Once the field was bordered we quickly measured off two rows of flags on either end using three different coloured flags for the driver to use to guide them. Further to that, Brack and I stood on the appropriate flag for each pass to give the driver bigger targets to aim at. It really took me back to my roots as a summer assistant. It had been a very long time since I got to plant a field scale trial, especially one without GPS assistance. The local agronomist showed up with a vacuum and generator thankfully. I was not looking forward to shaking those style of boxes. We planted all 18 strips and cleaned the planter thoroughly before handing it back to the operator.

I was back at the old research farm by half noon. I stopped for a bit to chat with Gerbs, my old assistant, and his new colleague who is running the farm for a year on a growth opportunity. That place changed a lot in the two years I’ve been gone. They have almost all new equipment, new buildings, new parking lots, re-arranged all the blocks, very different from my seven year tenure. As I was pulling out of the yard, they pulled out their fancy new toys. A new to them tractor and cassette planter. Crazy amount of new technology on those. They were just going to set them up. I gave them some grief about the state of the farm and tried to instill a sense of urgency in them to get moving. Inspired by my words, I got moving back to the office.

I made lunch as soon as I got home around half one. It was a can of Campbell’s Chunky Jerk Chicken soup and a pizza bun. Very basic lunch today. I did drink a couple of pints of water though. Over the course of the afternoon I was informed that both trucks had delivered the seed. I was also told that some of my plot seed that was delayed frequently was shipped and on the move. So by the end of the day I was down to my last three items for corn. I have five on the soybean side but those are going to be happening sooner rather than later too. Not as soon as I’d like but I’m pushing on those too. I got caught up on the small pile of emails that had accumulated and worked through a few issues. It was a pretty quiet afternoon. I powered down about quarter past five, feeling that my much earlier start warranted a slightly earlier finish. The meal board said I should be having chili rice for supper so I cooked up two cups of instant rice in the microwave and then added a can of Stagg Dynamite Hot chili on top. I added some cilantro for further seasoning and the cool look. It was filling and tasty, the cilantro added more to it than I suspected.

After supper was mostly a waste of time. I took my full belly upstairs and caught up on a few more YouTube videos then played HomeScapes. I have a streak going. I spent some more money in the game. I need to watch myself, it has been adding up. I can waste money on much better things than that. I watched a bit of Superstore in my bed but ulimately I wanted to sink my teeth in my audio book so everything was fairly limited if it had an audio component. I was into the third book of the series at this point and looking to consume a good jag of it by the end of the weekend. There was some issues getting to sleep, eventually I had to strip down to my gitch to successfully pass out. The fan was involved too. We in that awkward part of the year where the house heats up a lot in the last afternoon and evening and slowly cools overnight. It was too warm to fall asleep. I will have to start checking on the AC and getting that running soon, just to keep an even temp again.