The scurs kept it coming last week with another dose of cooler temperatures, making July a more distant memory. Can they deliver more of the same? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy with a modest chance of showers during the day and a good chance of rain in the evening. Highs of 85 and lows of 60. Thursday, partly cloudy and cooler with a slight chance of shower. Highs near 70 and lows around 50. Friday and Saturday, mostly clear with highs near 70 with lows near 50. Mostly clear on Sunday and Monday with highs of 75 and lows of 55. Partly cloudy on Tuesday with a slight chance of showers. Highs of 75 and lows near 65. The normal high for August 20th is 75 and the normal low is 65. The scurs have some last-minute school shopping to finish up, but that won’t keep them from lounging for a few last lazy hours as they await the return of the yellow livestock haulers.
Crop progress continues to amaze for the calendar date and a little rain hasn’t hurt. Rainfall has already surpassed the inch we got in the month of July at the ranch and is close in the gauge in town. 98-day corn planted April 11th was half milk line late last week meaning it is about 7-10 days from physiological maturity. Some of the early planted soybeans in the 1.8 maturity range are a bona fide R6 stage meaning they have at least one pod at a node on the main stem with a fully expanded trifoliate where the seed fills the pod cavity. Recent rains probably won’t do much to benefit the corn but will certainly help the soybeans fill some of the pods that have been set late in the season. The question still remains however how many will be set, what will the moisture and temperature conditions be from here on out and how much time do we have left before a killing frost. The recent cooler temperatures have reminded us that Mother Nature still has a mind of her own and is capable of changing it whenever she feels like it.
A little more of the garden at the ranch continues to come online with each passing week. Both yellow and green beans are reaching full capacity along with the zucchini and cukes. More melons and squash are showing up and they are huge. One visitor noted the nice pumpkins and I had to point out that they were actually Mooregold squash. The tomatoes have been slow to ripen with just a few of the small yellow pear tomatoes. Luckily I stopped in to visit someone I had been meaning to meet for quite some time who happens to be a tomato aficionado extraordinaire. After getting a tour of his garden he gave me a generous bag with a sampler of 4 or 5 different heirloom tomatoes. They were absolutely fantastic and am hoping we can reciprocate with some melons as they get ripe. I’ve done some more planting here as well. July 31st the winter radish crop was seeded and within a week they were up. They are starting to thicken up so that one can easily tell there is another radish crop on the way. The winter radishes are unique in that they are fairly large and sliced like a kohlrabi they remind one of that. The initial texture and taste is similar but usually about 5 seconds later the similarity ends when they unleash their firepower on your taste buds. Over the past weekend, more snap peas were planted along with some lettuce and another row or radishes-this time some usually designed for spring seeding but mentioned the option for fall/late summer seeding so thought I’d give it a try.
The pasture welcomed the recent rains as well and has greened up in response. The sheep have dipped into the native prairie pasture at the ranch already so it would help if the rains continued to recharge the batteries of the cool season grasses in the remainder. In our home pasture and the pasture at the kindly neighbors weeds have been relatively well controlled for this season anyway. However looking closely one can see there are some bull thistle and musk thistle rosettes appearing, apparently also benefitting from some of the recent rains. These are true biennials so they will either need to be dealt with this fall if time allows or early in the spring when they’re still vulnerable. They can be controlled when they get larger but it takes more chemical to accomplish the job. It still bothers me to see a thistle or two sticking up where I can see it so I always carry my trusty bean hook in the truck just in case. Have bean hook, will travel.
At the kindly neighbor’s pasture the young bluebirds have fledged and they are hanging around the oak trees. It appears the last of the barn swallows has taken wing at the ranch. The interesting thing is they continue to come back and roost in their nest. The hummers have continued to increase in number and activity, keeping the feeders and flower pots worked over daily. The orioles we nearly gave up on a few weeks ago have made a rapid resurgence. There are still some young orchard orioles but most now are young Baltimore types with an occasional brightly colored male in the mix. At times there are up to a half dozen at the feeders or in the tree where they hang so the jelly and sugar water consumption rivals that we experienced earlier in the season once again. Some young goldfinches are appearing now very drab in color and smaller in size than the rest of the crew. They are all hungry it seems and keeping the feeders full has been a full time job. As mentioned last week, there are few acorns. Checking at the kindly neighbors pasture, there is evidence a few must have fallen from up high in the trees where temperatures were warmer and the flowers on the oak trees were not frozen. All that’s left though are the cups that held the acorns, making one wonder if the squirrels have put them away for safekeeping or squandered them while eyeing the birdfeeders.
See you next week…real good then.