Down on the farm

I have Bragged about my Girlfriend, blogged about my time out west, Taken pictures of my new mansion, and even told you about my neighbors. And I am sure you are wondering how I afford the luxuries that I indulge in. I am going to satisfy your curiosity with snippets from work.

Welcome to M&M Farms. This is the shop.

This is the inside of the shop, or a different angle.

Commodity storage.

Equipment storage. But I think we are going to fill this with corn this fall.
The truck I drive the most is on the left.

More equipment in storage

We dont' just sit around all day. We often haul fertilizer onto the fields.
This is the plant where we load. A tanker can hold about 4800 gallons.

Then we drive to the field.
In this picture we have to back off of the road because the field is too soft for the trucks.
We try to unload downhill so our tanks empty better.

We transfer the load to a vacuum tank spreader called the 'Balzer'. It holds 7500 gallons. There is a hydraulic powered vacuum pump that powers the unit. When we are loading we turn the valve to suck air out of the tank, the vacuum sucks the contents from the truck into the spreader. To spread we switch the valve to apply pressure to the tank which unloads when we open the valve on the rear.

Then we spread it on the fields at the appropriate rate. The rate of application is determined by the percentage of nitrogen (N) of that particular load. We have a chart in the tractor that tells us how fast to drive. One load I had to drive 15 MPH.

We also haul lime out of lagoons like these.
This lime was used at a water treatment facility to soften the water.

It is then transferred to this settling lagoon to let the lime settle out
before the water returned to the local estuary.
We have a pump we back down into the lagoon which mixes the lime and the water and then pumps the slurry mixture into our trucks. The slurry is similar to that of elmers glue in texture, and is about 40% solids.
We then apply the lime to fields just like we do the fertilizer.

Yes, agriculture is a science. Yes, it is a form of industry
and yes, it does put healthy food on your table.
Thank a farmer today.