Finally Some Progress in the Fields!

It has finally dried up enough (barely) to start getting in the fields again. Of course, its supposed to rain two more inches on Friday, so this dryness will be short-lived!

Remember two weeks ago when we finally started defoliating? This is the first time we've been able to get in the fields since then. This is what the defoliated cotton looks like now. It should be completely white by now, but all the leaves still haven't shed off the plants. We're not even sure if it's going to. We've had so much rain and about 3 nights of freezing temperatures, so we're just glad the cotton is looking this good. If we get too hard of a freeze, sometimes the bolls don't open at all. So we're not sure if the cotton that hasn't been defoliated yet will open when it is finally defoliated.

Today, I rode with Lance while he defoliated.



It is very hard to find the rows when you're driving through non-defoliated cotton!

We also got in the peanut fields!
You can see some brown spots on the leaves where they were frostbitten the other night. Some of the vines were starting to die, but so far, the peanuts seem to be okay.
This is a picture of the peanut inverter at work! If you misssed me explaining how it works, check it out on my last post!

In front of the tractor is what the peanuts look like before being inverted.
This is what they look like after being inverted!
Here's the peanuts. There is a lot of dirt and mud on the peanuts that shouldn't be. The fields are still very wet and should really be much drier to invert, but we can't keep waiting!
The peanuts need to be dry before they are combined, so hopefully we will start combining next week! We tested out our combine the other afternoon. We first ran some hay through it to make sure everything worked.
Then we threw in some peanuts that we had dug by hand.
And even practiced dumping the basket! This is how the peanuts get from the combine into the peanut dump cart.
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We're also making some SLOW progress in our house!

Our fireplace was rocked.
All of our light fixtures have been hung.

My washer and dryer have arrived, but not installed. The color really doesn't show up good in this picture. To see the true color go here.
Heres our laundry room cabinets. Theres one on the other end of the wall too.

We also have half of our kitchen cabinets installed. And finally, we've got shutters!