It's close to the end. Here's a little song that I though about recently. "The End" was a rather special song to me. I found it on accident during a high school computer class.
Anyway, time to complete the last blog post.
Today would probably be the last taste panel for the summer. We distributed these four blackberries: celestial, Ouachita, von, and traveler. Haley and I ended up stopping by the Somerset office to collect results. We managed to get about 20 or so which is pretty good for study.
I think I was always partial to celestial. It's usually the sweetest when most blackberries tend to be a bit sour.
Tuesday
I finished up the first draft for a set of soil kit instructions. I think this is probably a decent working kit for now. At least with the fancy colorimeter. The problem is though that the fancy HACH colorimeter costs about $700. Definitely not something you want to put out in the field on a regular basis.
As a result, I still have to figure out how the phosphate sensor works. Its much smaller which lends itself to portability and easier use. But I think it was misplaced so I'll have to look for it again.
Here is a copy of the instructions for now:
Wednesday
Today I am gearing up for the Somerset Fair. It looks like I will be doing another dirt cake event.
Later, I helped Haley and Sarah work with these big soil sensors. We were troubleshooting a lot of them though. Originally, we thought the entire set of sensors required a subscription of about $120.
But actually, it turns out each sensor requires a yearly subscription. And we aren't even sure they are working properly. So we opted to test 1 for now.
The each unit actually can have 8 sensors attached to collect information on different soil depths. As a result, each sensor has to be "conditioned" by placing them in water for 30 minutes and allowing them to dry.
One of the newer devices had a circuit board that was blocking some wires. So Sarah had to manually remove it. We ended up attaching the device to a wooden board by drilling nails into it. Then it was attached to a pole.
We will definitely have to get the ground running on Tuesday with that project.
Thursday
Today I attended Commodity Classics. It was a networking / business event mostly geared towards grain and soybean producers. Admittedly I should not feel out of place since I am technically a farmer myself but networking events were always something difficult for me (probably shouldn't speak it into existence).
I met Dave, Brian, Macy, Shelby, Elise, and Mike at the event. So it was nice to see familiar faces in a rather unfamiliar place.
Friday
Today was shed clean up day. I was working with Sarah and we basically took out a lot of stuff from the shed and reorganized it. There were a lot of soil sample devices as well as marketing materials. A lot of bags. A lot.
It was super hot too. I was pretty much sweating for several hours today. Thankfully, it was windy so it helped to cool down a bit.
Here was something cool that we found though. In the shed there was a box with a bunch of old extension archives. So there was some reports here and there spanning the last 100 years. There were a bunch of old photos too. Here are some of them:
I'll have to take pictures and bring them to the presentation next week!
Saturday
Today is the Somerset County Fair. I'll be handing out dirt deserts for some people today.
There actually wasn't too many people, most likely because it was too warm.
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