The scurs were overoptimistic about rainfall, but at least we got some. Will we get any more this week? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with highs near 95 and lows around 65. Slightly warmer (okay, hotter than Hades) on Thursday with highs nearing the century mark and lows around 65. Mostly clear on Friday and Saturday with highs dropping down to 90 and lows of 60-65. Mostly sunny on Sunday with a slight chance of an evening shower. Highs around 85 and lows of 60-65. Mostly sunny and cooler on Labor Day with highs of 80 and lows of 60. Partly cloudy with a chance of showers on Tuesday. Highs of 85 and lows of 55. The normal high for August 31st is 78 and the normal low is 54. The scurs will be resting their weary carcasses on Labor Day after a grueling hot summer.
August 31st will provide us with one of those somewhat rare occurrences, namely a Blue Moon. Originally a Blue Moon was defined as the 4th Full Moon in a season, although today’s generally accepted definition calls a Blue Moon the second Full Moon in a month. It can also be called a Blue Moon if the moon itself appears blue due to dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. Actually the frequency with which a Blue Moon occurs is about once every 19 months although it is not a given and there may be several years in which it does not occur. Since this Full Moon has essentially no name, a la Clint Eastwood in the Spaghetti Westerns, some have dubbed it a Full Fruit Moon and others since the September Full Moon will be the Harvest Moon, are calling this one the Full Corn Moon. Oddly enough, since Native Americans used the moons as one of their methods of measuring time, it doesn’t always mesh with our monthly format. At the ranch however we have no such problem, it’s known as the Moon When the Garden Overwhelms Us.
The grueling hot summer decides to come back in late August for an encore performance. Thought maybe we were done with 90-degree heat, didn’t you? Coupled with the continued sparse rainfall, that heat has pretty well cooked the goose of any chance we had at adding additional soybean yield on later-maturing soybeans. For the most part corn has reached physiological maturity and the heat will hasten the dry down. No doubt about it, there will be plenty of corn harvested in September here as stalk quality and weak ear shanks could become an issue. Everyone got a reminder of how costly that dry corn could be this past spring when all the volunteer corn showed up. Ten to 20 bushel per acre on the ground would’ve paid for a lot of dryer gas.
The garden has been ultra-productive this year, although due to some miscommunication, it seems we’ve made more promises than we can keep. When I’ve wanted something to eat or promised someone something, suddenly the cupboard is bare. Oh well, the snap peas are up and the winter radishes continue to look impressive as we approach the fall season. They should after the watering they’ve had. Certainly hasn’t hurt to supplement the scant rains they’ve received. Thanks to some additional timely watering muskmelon crop has started out as good as it looked with some of the sweetest cantaloupes we’ve raised in many moons. The tomatoes should throttle up this next week. Watering has also helped the posies. The 4 o’clocks and the morning glories have become an explosion of blooms the hummingbird population can’t seem to resist. The morning glories are approaching the halfway point on the yard light pole. It appears only a hard freeze stands between them reaching the top.
The sheep have ground their pasture down pretty well and look forward to all the vegetable peelings and leftovers sent their direction over the fence. Sweet corn husks and cobs are among their favorites although the melon rinds and cucumber peelings disappear quickly. There are no apples for them this year at the ranch after a banner year last season. The last SnoSweet apple was destroyed by a bird so we’ll need to wait at least another year to sample any from our own tree. That said with the dry weather conditions it’s probably not a bad idea to water the fruit trees this fall. The last update from the SROC in Waseca indicates lower available soil moisture in the top 5’ than we had at any time last year. We certainly didn’t make any miraculous recovery this past week.
The birds are in a transition stage around our yard right now. Thinking there still might be an oriole or two around yet after my week long absence, I put a couple dollops of jelly in their feeder and refilled their nectar feeder. Checking the feeders the next morning, it appeared there had been some activity. The scolding from the trees above confirmed my suspicions: They’re still here!
Another Pro Farmer Crop Tour is in the books and best of all I lived to tell about it. Never have I witnessed so much poor crop over such a vast area. One of the interesting things though was the low amount of destroyed and harvested crop relative to what I’d seen the network media report in early July. While there were some corn fields where the yield was essentially zero, most had at least some corn in them that would still make them worth harvesting. And, in some areas where rains fell a few weeks ago, the soybeans actually looked respectable all things considered. Not saying it isn’t a disaster but sometimes it seems especially at the national network level, the media would rather the facts didn’t get in the way of a good story. On my level, I’m just glad for the opportunity to participate in this event and call it as I see it yet another year. Like everything else I do though, it seems when I reached the ripe old age of 50, it takes more time to recover. Most importantly though, as I’ve said in years past, Oh Auntie Em, there’s no place like home!
See you next week…real good then.