Lucky for the scurs, they haven’t been calling the amount of rainfall in their forecasts. It rained in the general area both days they predicted, just not enough to measure. Will we see something measurable this week? Starting Wednesday through Thursday, mostly clear with highs of 85 – 90 and lows around 65. Partly cloudy becoming mostly cloudy with a slight chance of daytime showers and a moderate chance of an overnight thunderstorm on Friday. Highs again of 85 – 90 and lows of 70. Partly cloudy Saturday and Sunday with a modest chance of a shower or thunderstorm on Saturday and a slight chance on Sunday. Highs around 90 and lows near 70. Mostly sunny and hot on Monday with a slight chance of a thunderstorm. Highs near 90 and lows around 70. Partly cloudy on Tuesday with a modest chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs near 90 and lows around 70. The normal high for July 15th is 83 and the normal low is 62. We will experience 15 hours and 8 minutes of daylight on the 15th, roughly the same as we saw on May 26th.
Crops by and large took the heat fairly well last week. Corn was tasseling and silking right along by the 4th and by Monday, some of the earliest planted corn was pollinated some of the 30” row soybeans are working on closing the rows. Some herbicide applications still need to be made so it will need to be done soon. Soybean aphids are still scarce to nonexistent, yet. While the heat wave likely slowed their reproduction, chances are they will make their presence known before it’s all said and done. Livestock producers were not so lucky with the heat. Last Thursday was tough with no breeze and heat indexes well over 100 degrees. This made it tough on cattle, turkeys, hogs and sheep. We lost a lamb that evening that had been born a couple days prior. There was just no way it could get enough fluid by drinking milk off the ewe to stay hydrated. Otherwise we were lucky, maintaining as much air movement as we could on confinement animals and keeping water sources full and clean.
We continue to see evidence of more new bird arrivals in and around the ranch. It had to be close to jump day at the pond for the wood ducks as the hen was sitting atop the nesting box on Sunday morning. The mosquitoes, deer flies and wood ticks have been so vicious however that I didn’t venture down to the area to witness the event. A female orchard oriole was dipping jelly out of the feeder then flying to a branch where she was feeding it to her young. And while I’m not sure if it was a young one or not, there was a hummingbird at the feeder again on Sunday morning. It was back again in the afternoon. More barn swallows are appearing all the time and that’s good news for keeping the flying insect population in check. The bluebirds continue to raise their brood in the nesting box attached to the old plow at the ranch. The female usually appears anytime you get near the plow. The bluebirds at the kindly neighbors have started a nest for a second brood. What happened to the kestrels? They have scattered to the 4 winds although the other day I saw 5 apparently young kestrels playing around on the wires not far from where Ingeborg used to live. Could it have been the 5 that hatched in the wetland this spring? There’s no way of knowing for sure.
In and around greater Bugtussle we are starting to hear the cicadas call already. TH from Waseca heard some a few days before we did on July 3rd at the ranch. Oddly enough, a week or so prior the cicada killer wasps were setting up shop at the City Hall garden. In the native prairie pasture, the yellow Indiangrass and big bluestem are also ahead of schedule having headed out over a week ago. The burn in the CRP really brought the bluestem out as in places it has become almost a solid stand. Can almost envision the Ingalls family wading through the tall grass prairie with the mountains of Walnut Grove in the background. (that’s a joke)
The garden needed some extra attention this past week. Seems the cucumber beetles are extremely aggressive this year and won’t leave the vine crops alone. That and of course the heat and dry weather prompted me to add some water into the equation, something I generally don’t do very often. Some of the garden is doing fine without it particularly the tomatoes. They showed no sign of stress although they did stop setting fruit during the hot spell. The bunnies pretty well destroyed the beet and snap pea crop. It will give me a chance to attempt a late summer planting of peas however about the same time the winter radishes are seeded. This time there will be a fence to contend with.
It was sad to hear about the passing of Andy Griffith on July 3rd. I still remember watching the show when it was first on and we had the old black and white Columbia TV. The older episodes are still in black and white even though I now watch it on a color TV. No one was more unflappable than Andy while he kept Barney reined in and protected Mayberry from the riff raff that drifted through from time to time. The show was so wholesome and down to earth that whether you were young or old, you could appreciate the message and the humor. Some of the old vehicles are interesting to look at too. The characters could’ve come from just about any Smalltown USA although not everyone had an Andy as sheriff. Seems like the Barney Fife-type was equally as common. It’s still easy to catch the old reruns on TV Land and they honored Andy Griffith last Saturday and Sunday with an Andy Griffith marathon. I must admit, I caught a couple episodes including the classic where Aunt Bee makes pickles that taste like kerosene. Watching that show is still a guilty pleasure after all these years. Thanks Andy for making it possible.
See you next week…real good then.