Mt Adams & Mt Rainier in the background on a beautiful spring morning. Cat D5SA pulling a Calkins chisel chopper. This field was sprayed with Roundup RT3 almost a month ago, so this is the second step in making summer fallow.

A sightly different angle........and a different mountain in the background. Or what's left of it. The jagged top of Mt St Helens is visible just to the left of the tractor cab. The D5 was purring right along pulling this chisel after a long winters nap. The Roundup application got a terrific kill & allowed a significant delay to the start of tillage. B-)

As usual - great pictures of amazing views!

is this the first spring work you do? Do you seed anything in spring or have you only winter crops?

Lennart

Wow, I´m impressed. How far is Mt. St. Helens and what happend to your region at the time of the blaze?

hardy- not to sidetrack this thread but the Mt. St. Helens eruption in May of 1980 blanketed much the northern U.S. with a dusting of ash. My area is due east about 300 miles from there and got just under an inch of fine light gray ash that afternoon. A big black cloud blotted out the sun and it looked like it started to snow. Some of eastern Washington got up to 4 inches of ash and caused problems with vehicles- plugging air filters and such. There was also a mudflow near the volcano which wiped some homes out.

Here is a link to a picture of the eruption

http://ahrcanum.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mount_st_helens-1980-may_18.jpg

The eruption was in late May and did not cause the crops many problems except some newly planted ones that had problems growing through it. In August when harvest got going there was still plenty of ash in the wheat crops- caused big dust clouds- shown is a pair of 6602s in the palouse that harvest with ash accumulated on the machines after a day of cutting.


BTW John- great pics, got any closeups of that chisel chopper? I understand it is chisel shanks followed by paddles?

Great photos as usual John.

Don't be shy to add more. :-D

Tony

I crossed the region East of Mt.St. Hellens nearly 30 years ago. We go by car in a field to talk with a combining farmer. The soil was like grey powder our car was often as to get stuck in this powder

Best
Theo

Hi Lennart!! This is my second operation this spring......I had my
son in law spray this field with Roundup RT3 about a month ago.
I will probably make two passes with the chisel, then hit it with
the rod weeder in early June. It will be seeded to winter wheat in
early October. Spring crops are not very successful in my immediate area. A lot more spring seeding takes place east of
my place in areas with more timely rains.

Mt St Helens is something like 70 or 80 miles ( as the crow flies)
to the NW of my place. We had no ash fall on the day of the first
eruption ( 05/18/1980) and only some minor ash fall the next week. The winds were taking it all to the NE....up towards Central
Washington, where it turned day into night in some locations.
We did get quite a bit of ash following an eruption in 1982....enough that we had to stop plowing for a few days. ( the
ash clogged the air filters ......shut one neighbors tractor down
completely)

Hi NIF!! Let's side track it......way more fun. Some of the soil that we farm here in the NW came from the eruption of Mt
Mazama......one that made Mt St Helens look like a piker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mazama

see also:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs092-02/

The result, besides some great soil......Crater Lake:

NIF........will get you a good shot of the Chisel in a couple of days.

Thank´s John and NIF for the information. Have you noticed some fertilizing effects?