Where has the time gone? 3 weeks have already passed since my last post! And there is much that has happened since then, too much in fact! I am now understanding why people are so busy here during the summer months…it’s because all and every activity has to be crammed into a 3 month time period when the weather is good, kids are out of school, and the farmers aren’t as busy in the fields.
I’m simply going to list the many activities that have kept me from posting 1 simple blog post in 3 weeks. I have no real excuse actually…
1. The corn is MIGHTY tall and has grown exponentially since my last post. From the time the plant is 6 inches tall or so, it begins to double in size every week. It is currently shoulder height!
It is predicted that Iowa will have one of the best corn crops ever with yields averaging 200 bushels per acre! Other corn producing states have had challenges due to flooding and drought which may affect future prices in the fall and winter but currently the markets have taken a hard turn south and are down a full dollar from a month ago. Predictors are saying that prices in our immediate area may not hit the $7 line any more this year, but we are still hopeful. Anything over $3-4 per bushel is still making money!
2. I totally singed my garden and had to start completely over. Yes, I feel so stupid about this mishap but it was a live and learn experience. One morning I covered our 3 garden beds with plastic sheeting to protect them from the sprayer that was coming by that morning to spray the corn field near it for weeds and pests. I watered my beautiful organic garden prior to poking holes in the plastic thinking that I was doing such a fabulous thing for my baby vegetable plants.
The sprayer did not come until the late afternoon so I left the plastic on thinking that my little plants would love the heat and humidity. Little did I know, that they hated it, especially when temperatures reached 100 degrees F!! When I took off the plastic, everything was brown and wilted, no more vibrant and striving green plants. I was devastated and depressed for a few days. In addition, the sweet corn and popcorn beds happened to be too close to the fence line where the young lambs grazed. Those little buggers reached their little necks through the fencing and nipped off all of my healthy growing corn plants! Lesson learned: Don’t plant corn next to a sheep fence. Duh!
3. After my depressed state wore away and the June rains gave me a dry opportunity, I replanted the entire garden. Today, it looks beautiful and vibrant as if nothing ever happened…it’s just that I won’t be able to reap the fruits of my harvest until December! Just kidding…September.
4. We bailed hay!!! Twice! Well actually, the harvests were quite meager due to the rain days that never really allowed us to cut then rake then bail up the first cut of hay properly. Around here, farmers can get 3 good cuts of hay with a possible 4th cut in September. Usually within the first week of every summer month is the best time to cut, but you need to make sure you forecast the days properly by looking ahead at the weather. After the hay is cut, it needs a
day of good drying weather to dry it out, then it can be raked and bailed. Most of our 1st crop hay became quite worthless because there were never any 3 day windows where it didn’t rain once. June is the highest moisture month in Iowa, so it gets a little tricky. So, we lost our first crop opportunity, bailed up a few hundred for ourselves on our neighbor, Wayne’s grass/alfalfa mix ground to ensure we have some hay to feed the sheep this winter. We hope that a second crop in August, which should be our third crop, will be more successful.
Anyway, last week was Johnny’s first hay bailing experience…the excitement and fun wore off after the first 50 bails were loaded onto the hay rack. Little did he know the effort required to bail and put away in the barn 200 bails.
5. I crop scouted our soybean fields and found a huge mess of giant ragweed in one, but other than that, our soybean fields look good. Now we have to start looking out for aphids! Uck! Counting 150+ little black bugs per soybean plant is not something I look forward to, but anything that eats and sucks the juices out of our beautiful green soybean plants, I have to take action!
6. My dad had the Schafer Bros. burn down his old hog farrowing unit, dig a big hole, and bury it. Too bad that in the process, it almost burned down my parent’s house!
Johnny helped the scrap metal guy break down 2 large old grain bins and all the metal inside the old building.
7. Miscellaneous items: found a little baby kitten at my parent’s farm while taking care of their farmstead while they were in LA visiting their new very first grandchild,
asked a neighbor to bring a trap over to trap a raccoon family living in a nearby tree, our dog Elby got peed on by a scared raccoon and when he came in the house he smelled like burning electric wires, our dog also got sprayed by a little skunk but luckily it was too young to spray, Johnny’s mom arrived here on June 13 and is staying until July 13th,
and we put her to work, of course…
We got all the barn cats neutered, spayed, and vaccinated! Yay! Except for the 4 kittens that are not old enough yet, mowed the lawn like every other day….grass grows fast here…, trimmed hedges, picked weeds, fixed more fence, bbqed, entertained, and ……..you get the idea.
It has been a vibrant summer thus far and I love it! No complaints here!
