ASHLEY UPDATE

 Office area, Block almost complete.  You can see insulating fabric is pulled above. It is 3000 square feet believe it or not.

 Plant progressing nicely.

Tent for laying block in the frigid temps.

NCRS

The building is currently all roofed and about half of the siding is up.  There just isn't enough hours of good daylight for good pictures.  The next one will probably be nearly complete.

NCRS UPDATE 1/24/10

The Chemical and Fertilizer storage building has all of the poles up and they are working on the skirtboards.  They did all of this in the morning today.

 They have been working to haul away all of the dirt that was scraped from the surface at the farm.  You can see the frost bridged up at the top.

 They have been sorting the frost out to haul later.  There are some very large chunks there.

 New brush hog to keep everything mowed up.  Much nicer than the old one.

 They are adding duals and saddle tanks to one of the tractors.  That will be used for planting to give more capacity for planting production ground and to hold the heavier planter as we add equipment to test new things.

Show Display

Below are some pictures of our new show display at the great lakes expo in Grand Rapids.  Thanks to Stephanie for the pictures.  It is pretty spectacular.

 16 feet high, suspended fromt he ceiling.

 Video displays loop video throughout the show.

 Growouts can be displayed along with a video presentation and still pictures.

 Backlit Display.

 Product compatibility display.

 Storage in the "tank" for everything that gest brought, keeps everything looking neat.

 There is even a refridgerator to keep LIQUID water chilled.

 Theater style seating for video or product demonstrations.

Looks like Reid even got to come to this show - part of the benefit is showing a variety of people throughout the different media (pictures, video etc)

Ashley Equipment Delivery

Here are some pictures (thanks to Gerrit) of the equipment delivery for Ashley.  The reactor is double the size of the ones that we have used in the past and has additional capabilities when compared to what we are currently using.  There is a pump, valve, and manifold skid that appears later that is quite impressive.

 This is a dry handling bin.  The following pictures show how it is erected.

 The trailer is so low that it got stuck in the doorway.

 We had a trailer that was similar to this that we used to set 10,000 gal fiberglass tanks.  Not needing a truck to set tanks is very beneficial.

You can see how large everything is here.  The dry bins are the same height as a 30,000 gal tank.  Everything looks small in that big building.

You get a glimpse of the pump, valve, manifold skid here.  Everything is air actuated with valve position sensors for superior quality in product manufacturing.

Server Room

Remember the earlier post a long time ago about a new server room??  The equipment is now being installed and most of the old servers have been migrated over.  It is amazing to me that we can do several times the processing and storage capacity and the machines keep getting smaller and smaller.  Thanks to Tracy for the pictures.

Ashley Building Covered

 Below are some pictures.  You can see that we are continuing to do truck and rail shipments here, much more than anticipated for this time of the year.  The building is fully covered and they are beginning to work on doors and other inside work.  Many in our company are now on the sales and employee award trip in Hawaii.  The guys in the Hawiian shirts by the sign wish they were, maybe next year.  Thanks to Jerry for the pictures.