Re-surface

While doing chores one day last week, I was kneeling down beside a pen of pigs and one of the curious pigs that gathered by the fence sneezed in my face.  I hadn't had that happen in a long time.
It is not a desirable situation to have to wipe pig snot from your face!

When I was growing up we lived on a gravel road like most rural people did.  But, by the time I got my drivers license, the road was a "hard road".  Our township was fairly progressive and they surfaced most of their roads in the late '60's and early '70's with the "tar and chip" method.  You start by spraying a layer of liquid asphalt on the road and then cover it with crushed rock chips or pea gravel.  About every five or so years it needs to be re-coated because the rocks wear off and the tar bleeds through on hot summer days.  Last week was time for a re-coat and they asked us not to mow roads (to keep from coating the road with clippings) until they were finished.  The process has gotten more efficient over the years. They ran a street sweeper down the road one day, the next day the road was only closed about two hours.

The tar truck putting down a layer of hot, liquid asphalt.

Next, the chip spreader.

The chip spreader pulls the gravel truck as it dumps its load into the hopper.

Then the roller comes past and packs the chips into the tar, and the surface is ready to drive on.

And Achish said, Whither have ye made a road to day? And David said, Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of the Kenites.
I Samuel 27:10

Cool and Sweet

July has passed and is officially the coolest on record for Central Illinois.  We have had adequate rain and the crops are lush looking.  The weeds in the soybeans have also thrived this year and its been a battle to control them.  We have cultivated some, walked some, and double sprayed some.  It looks like we have a bumper crop coming on, although maybe a little late maturing because of the cool weather.

I've been doing double duty chores for the past week as both my brother and our neighbor have been gone.  Fortunately, things have gone smoothly.  We shipped a semi-trailer load of hogs on Monday that averaged 292 Lbs. per head.  That's a lot of pork!

I went to a land auction last week at Eureka College.  There were five pieces of farmland being auctioned off, two of which were just down the road from us.  We would have liked to have purchased one of the pieces, but the price was a little out of our league.  There were a lot of farmers and a lot of money represented in that room that day.

It's been another very good sweet corn year.  It seems like the sweet corn is always ready when we are on vacation, so this year I planted three different maturities on four different days to make sure we had plenty.  And we did.  We started eating and freezing corn in mid July, and we are still eating fresh corn out of our patches.  The ears have been good sized and fully pollinated, and lots of double ears and even some triple eared stalks.

Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:
Genesis 27:28