the last day of winter on the farm

since my daughter is on good terms with her neighbors i was allowed to wander around their farm and have a look...

even the farm dog was in a friendly frame of mind and we strolled around together...

one of the first things that struck me was the amount of dense yellow #2 that either...

the combine missed...

or, somehow or other, failed to be ensiled...the second issue stems from the fact that the farm is located on the valparaiso moraine ( you can see how the topography undulates in the top photo )...

which has led to...

some erosion on the slopes...i am uncertain if this is a no till farm or not...there was stubble in the fields and no evidence of a post-harvest tilling as there is in numerous fields i pass by while commuting...this will likely be a bean field this coming spring, and while the window for planting tsoy beans runs from early april until june i usually don't see them until the later part of may...the weather here has been scrambled and the storms have become more severe with heavier rainfall which could lead to some ravine-like erosion between now and planting...i may have a chance to see...i may not...however i will be keeping an eye on local rainfall. adendum...this wouldn't account for wind erosion which will occur...we have discussed elsewhere in this blog that, although they do not appear so from the outside, due to row spacing these fields are mostly bare soil