Tuesday, May 14, 2024

It’s raining again today.  We got a little bit last night, but today we’ve received another .8″ (20mm).  Because of this rainy spell, #plant24 is stopped again, and it looks like it will take a few days of warm and breezy sunshine to allow us to run the planters again.

Yesterday was a good day.  We had not been able to plant any corn or soybeans for 15 days, so it felt good to be going again.  Brandon was able to plant a couple fields of corn.  It was not perfect conditions, but the corn went into the soil pretty well.  I was able to plant the Nellie field into soybeans.  It felt very good to get a bit farther down the road for spring planting season.  Brandon will be able to finish off the corn in one day’s running; it’ll take me almost 3 days’ work to get the soybeans done.  One bright spot is that the fields that have been planted are all looking pretty good.

Planting soybeans at the Nellie field

Here is a screen capture of the Operations Center map of the Nellie field as I am planting on Monday.

There are many reasons to be thankful.  Sure, we could begin to wring our hands over the remaining planting work that needs to be done, but that anxiety does not help.  We’ve used every window of opportunity that the weather has allowed.  And we will continue to do so.

Soon, the planted acres will be needing a post-emerge herbicide application.  That will turn up the pressure on John to get across those acres.  The corn will be ‘laid by’ once John makes that application.  “Laid by” means that there will be no more action needed on those acres until harvest.  There is one exception to that idea.  One of our corn varieties may require a fungicide application at tasseling.  But that will be done by an airplane.  Soybeans  will likely need two passes of herbicide before it is “laid by”.

Over the weekend, we had a couple nights of special skies.  Some kind of unusual solar flare activity energized the atmosphere to bring the northern lights to our part of the continental US.  We went out at about 11 pm and discovered something I never expected to see here in my lifetime!   The effects of the aurora borealis were pretty dim to the naked eye, but the camera in my phone captured it well.  Such a special treat!   And our son Ben was flying the red-eye flight from Denver to Detroit that night, and he sent a picture of what he saw from the cockpit.   Wow!

Looking north from our front door at 11 pm, these were the Northern Lights!

Here was Ben’s view on his red-eye flight from DEN to DTW

The grain markets have been making some upturns in the past few days.  Brandon used this little boost to make some timely sales of 24-crop corn and wheat.   Wheat prices have been so very depressed for months, it is good to see it bump up for a bit!

When the fields dry down again, we will be ready.  It’s just gonna take a number of sunny and warm days to get the remaining fields ready for the planters to finish up their tasks.  Looking forward to that wrap-up, and on to the next step… preparing combines for #wheatharvest24!

Have a good week.