Saturday, February 20, 2016

a berm and a ramp

it has been unseasonably warm here for nearing the end of february and any number of things seem to have gotten an early start...i finished my one errand this morning in unexpectedly easy fashion and i found myself with both time on my hands and a geographical proximity to the corn/soybean field out on county line road i have been watching for a number of years...so i went out to see what there was to see...what i found was there has already been plowing going on...this has never been a no til field in all they years i have observed it...strictly an industrial operation...even though the field has been plowed it has not completely obliterated the signs of erosion...i have written about the lack of precipitation this winter and my concerns over the possibility of drought this coming season...even so there is water standing in the field and the berm has failed in a number of places...and in the fourth photo it appears there had been a culvert installed to draw water away from the field and into the drainage ditches in the better drained field across the road...industrial agriculture isn't the only thing getting ready for spring...the clover (fifth photo ) and the winter vetch ( sixth) are both looking for sunlight and have popped up across the future potato patch...nitrogen production should begin again soon...the last photo is of a solitary ramp that has popped up in one of the ramp beds...i covered it back up with the leaf litter that has been a mulch there all winter..they are hardy early risers but this one is early...a mistake perhaps...then again it may know more than i do.

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