The scurs wasted no time predicting the precipitation last week. The precipitation wasted no time falling either. Will we see more of the same this week? Starting Wednesday, mostly clear with highs of 65 and lows near 45. Clear again for Thursday and slightly warmer with highs around 70 and lows of 55. Partly cloudy Friday with a fair chance of daytime showers or a thunderstorm with decreasing chances into the evening. Highs of 70 and lows of 45 - 50. Mostly sunny for Saturday and Sunday with highs of 65- 70 and lows of 45 - 50. Mostly cloudy Monday and warmer with highs of 75 and lows falling to 55- 60. Mostly sunny becoming mostly cloudy by evening with chance of a shower. Highs near 70 and lows of 55 - 60. The normal high for May 13th is 69 and the normal low is 46. The scurs remind you that Sunday is the mother of all holidays.
Fieldwork progress was hit and miss depending on location last week. May 3rd and 4th allowed some to finish their corn planting while others focused on the soybean planting. Corn has emerged and generally very well. The rains that fell this past week have caused some erosion concerns in areas due to the intensity of the storms. However, rainfall amounts while generous were not overwhelmingly damaging in most cases. If we can get the faucet at least turned down a tad we should be able to finish planting. Remember, don’t pray for rain, pray for favorable weather.
In the yard this week it was almost all for the birds. Starting on Tuesday, meadowlarks were heard in the pasture as I toiled in the garden. On May 3rd, the first two male Baltimore orioles appeared and at almost the same time, one of the Harris sparrows that usually appears in early May. The next day there was a male orchard oriole at the jelly feeder and with rumors of hummingbirds in the area, it was time to break out the sugar water feeders. The next morning I was rewarded for my efforts with 2 male ruby-throated hummingbirds darting from feeder to feeder. A red-headed woodpecker also decided to appear at the sunflower feeder so I made sure it was well stocked. It also seems to enjoy the jelly feeder. A catbird sampled some jelly not long after that and the final arrival for the day was a male indigo bunting. We haven’t seen them every year here but we’re always glad they decide to stop.
Around the wetland the recent rains have been cause for song and celebration. The noise from the thousands of frogs and toads is almost deafening. The basin is at about 2/3 – ¾ of capacity. One of the kestrel eggs had hatched as of Sunday night, putting a crowning touch on the day. The mother was on break as I photographed the newbie and I quickly left the area so as not to frighten the adults. Luckily there are huge numbers of relatively large insects including moths and most recently June bugs for the parents to catch and feed to the offspring. There are also plenty of small rodents and of course house sparrows that they will hopefully tap into.
The radish crop has been very bountiful. Apparently planting them March 18th was to their liking. The harvest yielded not one but two 2-gallon pails full of the red globes and after the processing, put a small dent in the scads of margarine containers we have. The potatoes planted a week after Good Friday have finally started to emerge. Cold temperatures didn’t allow much to happen for several weeks. I was thankful to see them. It’s a pain to replant them and buying potatoes from the store just isn’t the same. The yard had become such a fright so that it was mowed between weekend thunderstorms. Like many area lawns, the dandelions make it look like it wasn’t touched two days later. The nannyberries and chokecherries should be in full bloom this week as the freeze(s) earlier this spring apparently didn’t hurt them much. The burr oak tree is finally coming around after taking a hit from the freeze. It appears the pear trees have no fruit set. Even though some of the apples took a year off, the Snow Sweet tree appears ready to bear its first apples.
Mother’s Day is fast approaching and I couldn’t help but think of Mom last week when I was applying for a passport. A passport is not helpful to get into Canada for a fishing trip these days, it’s a necessity. As proof of identification for the application, I needed a certified copy of my birth certificate or my long since expired and presumed lost passport. When I called her, she was on her way out and said she’d look for it when she got back. Let me back up a moment though to tell you Mom has always kept meticulous records. For example, a couple years ago, the co-op had called her and claimed she owed rent on an LP tank at our farm near Stewartville. Mom told them she was sure we owned the tank while the guy from the co-op was insistent that their computerized records were correct. She said she had the receipt somewhere and would call back to confirm that information. She found it and called him back, rattling off the tank serial number on the purchase she and Dad had made back in 1957. The guy on the other end of the line had to be dumbfounded when she asked if she should bring the receipt in. He said no, that was OK, that their computerized records didn’t go back that far and that he needed to do some more checking. He called her back later, apologizing, saying that apparently there had been a duplication of that serial number on another tank at the manufacturer. Score: Mom 1, computerized record keeping system 0.
Back to the birth certificate. Mom had called and left a message saying she had found it and I should call her back when I got the chance. In order for a birth certificate to be considered a certified copy, it needs to be one issued by the courthouse with a dated, embossed seal. There are also unofficial hospital copies that are given to new parents, which was what I was afraid Mom would have so I called her back. Nope. It was the real McCoy she had stashed away after we had taken a family vacation to visit my oldest brother who was in the Peace Corps in Venezuela. The date that document was procured: 1967. And you guessed it, she also found my passport from 1974, teasing me that I looked like I was about 12 in the photo. I bet I was at least 16 and might’ve even been shaving. No wonder we never got by with anything as kids. She remembered everything, reading us like a book and was always one step ahead of us. Our friends would often wonder why some of the hair-brained schemes we’d cook up were snuffed out long before we could pull them off. She was even accused of having radar by some kids at one point. Looking back now, even though we’d pool our intelligence and resources, both of which were extremely meager, it’s no wonder we couldn’t put anything past her: We had no idea who we were messin’ with! Happy Mother’s Day Mom!
See you next week…real good then.