May 3^RD: Awoke today to 3” of snow on the ground.  Needless to say no fieldwork today.  Today was spent returning phone calls and doing paperwork.  Received  a call from a landlord who farms in central Illinois.  They are in the same boat we are with only 4 acres planted before rain forced them from the field.

Roger is returning from his Missouri trip turkey hunting.  Trey is starting a 30 hour famine service project with the local youth group at our church and Natalie is going to a lock in at one of her friend’s church tonight.  It would be a nice night out for Leasa and I, but I decided to do the 30 hour famine as well.  I will keep you informed of how it goes.

May 2^nd:  Spent the morning cleaning and bedding the feeder cattle.  The weather definitely changed.  We have only had 1” of snow (Clarion had close to 7”).  Needless to say I am glad that we have waited and not started to plant.

The kids got out of school early today due to the snow.  A landlord that lives in South Carolina, but is originally from New Hampton, was back in the area and we were able to meet and get to know each other better.  The coworker that he brought along was certainly surprised to see snow this late in the spring.

Trey talked me into letting him go to the premier of “Iron Man 3” which started at 10 PM in the local theater.  Roger called me to let me know that he shot a turkey, but was going to stay there for another day to see if he could get his second bird.

May 1^st:  Super windy and blustery day.  Wind was from the north and was turning colder.  Spent the day cleaning the feeder cattle lot and clearing trees from around the building.

Our house is coming along and no longer has a pool in the basement and actually has a basement wall constructed. 

April 30^th:  Warm and windy day.  Miller True Value fixed the lift and we finished cutting down the remainder of the tree.  The wind was close to a 40 MPH gust at times, but we utilized a rope to make sure the limbs fell the correct way.  I am glad to report that we did not hit the house and nothing fell on anyone.

Even though we had close to a half inch of rain last night (Also some hail and thunder that shook the house so much a clock fell off the wall), the ground dried up enough to where I could get in the field with the skidloader  after lunch.  The afternoon was spent clearing fencelines of trees and pushing the remains of cornstalk stacks into a pile so the dirt beneath them would warm and dry out.  Believe it or not, I actually found some snow underneath some of the piles.

The forecast is calling for a cool/wet next 5 days.  With this outlook, Roger has decided to make a trip down to Missouri again to try his luck turkey hunting.  It gives him a chance to get together with Leasa’s Dad and have good time.

April 29^th:  Today was spent clearing trees from the fenceline at the Charles City Aiport farm.  The previous tenant made cornstalk bales and left a couple behind that did not stay formed.  We lite them on fire and piled as much as we could on a pile to burn at a later date.  The ground was still not quite dry enough in spots and we were unable to clear all of the fencelines that we cut out earlier.

April 28^th:  (Planting Progress: Lantzky: 0%, Iowa: 2%, 5 Yr Average: 36%)  We finished picking rocks on the Tenge farm today.  This field had plenty of rocks as the landlord installed tile every 50’ or better on the 160 acres.  It really will improve the farm, but the rocks are always thick when you tile a farm.

Schnieders were spreading dry fertilizer on the remaining fields today.  They are running behind on getting things applied, but the recent string of good weather is allowing them to get caught up.

We finished up the rocks around noon and decided to show Roger how to set the auto track in the 9300 tractor that we just purchased.  We set the A-B line and started the auto guidance when halfway across the field, the tractor went BOOM!!  The clamp on the turbo intake broke and the turbo was not getting any air.  Needless to say we were done for the day.  To finish the day we went to Natalie’s soccer game in the that evening.