The scurs had some of the showers right last week, it just depended on where you lived. Will you have to move to get rain in this week’s forecast? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy with a modest chance of a shower or thunderstorms. Highs in the mid 70s and lows in the lower 60s. Thursday, partly cloudy with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the lower 60s. Partly cloudy for Friday with a modest chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the mid 70s and lows in the upper 50s. Saturday, partly cloudy with highs in the low 70s and lows in the mid 50s. Partly cloudy for Sunday with highs in the mid 70s and lows in the upper 50s. Monday, partly cloudy with highs in the mid 70s and lows in the mid 50s. Partly cloudy for Tuesday with an increasing chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the upper 70s and lows in the upper 50s. The normal high for July 27th is 82 and the normal low is 61. We will see the sunrise after 6 a.m. for the first time since May 4th. The scurs will be sleeping in and savoring the additional dark time.
The heat from the past week moved crops along rapidly with corn tassels emerging in many fields. The moist soil conditions at planting have been evident as digger wheel tracks and other features undetectable until now have reared their ugly heads. Considering the later planting date, corn seems to be rather short, perhaps the opposite of what one might expect. However, there is a hybrid component to this as well, with many switching to earlier hybrids of shorter stature. Soybeans are all over the board depending on planting date. As of Monday, one could find soybeans between R3 and R4 and go the next one only to find them in the V3 stage. At least at this point, a drawn out harvest seems likely. Soybean aphids have been scarce and it would be a blessing if they stay that way. Many soybean fields are exhibiting weed control problems with waterhemp. It appears that the long expected waterhemp resistance to glyphosate has likely arrived. Overall though, the crop here still has potential. As many have pointed out, both the corn and soybean crop look good for late June.
The garden at the ranch also falls into that category. The string beans planted June 30th have reached about 6” and the sweet corn is about a foot tall. The cucumbers loved the heat as did the tomatoes, setting more fruit as the week went on. The squash are starting to move although it may be too little too late. Saturday was a good day for killing waterhemp on the prevented plant garden acreage. As of yet, no resistance has been documented in waterhemp to cold, hard steel. As thick as it was it made an excellent green manure crop. Ground was also prepared for the fall garden project. Snap peas, winter radishes and lettuce are on the agenda. With the drier conditions forecast, planting them now and watering them in may be the course of action taken. No sense planting seeds and waiting for late October rains to germinate them.
The lawnmower wars continue at the ranch. In spite of my best efforts, Whitey Jr. would still not commence likely due to a bunch of crud in the carburetor. No gas getting to the ignition chamber is usually a clue. Howard was repaired however and made an appearance after neighbor David’s grandson and ace mechanic worked on it. Howard is a little like his namesake I think. After deciding to quit a couple times while mowing, Howard too was not getting fuel to the carburetor. Unhooking the fuel line and blowing back into the gas tank moved the obstruction in the fuel tank. The next move will be to run the fuel level down as low as possible and remove the tank. My guess is there’s a spider or an insect that had made its home in the gas nozzle and wound up in the bottom of the tank. Removing a tank from another mower a few years ago revealed 4 or 5 spiders in the bottom of it. Finding one or more in Howard’s tank would come as no great surprise.
The orioles continue to gobble down jelly, sugar water and orange halves faster than ever. Every couple days the jelly feeder and orange halves need refreshing and cleaning out the nectar feeder. For those berry loving birds, this should be their lucky year at the ranch. The nannyberries, chokeberries, crabapples, honeysuckle, American cranberry and red osier dogwood are heavily laden with green fruit. Barring some unforeseen disaster, there should be an ample supply to help feed the migrating and overwintering bird population. Hate to send visitors at the ranch away with an empty stomach.
It was time to switch to another cell phone once again and making the change has been a learning experience. There really is no instruction book anymore per se so you’re just left to your own devices, punching icons to discover what the thing can do. Luckily for me the young chap at the store did a pretty good job of explaining the basics of the system. There was an amazing amount of dirt in the Crackberry when he opened it up to extract the memory card. When I told him there was enough in there that we could bag it up and send it to a lab for analysis, he seemed less than amused. Must not be an app for that. He apparently was unaware that Confucius say, Agronomist have rye wit.
The new phone is droid based, different than the Crackberry to be sure. With a touch screen it’s capable of confusing you faster than ever before. Now, I don’t like cell phones, but I tolerate them, categorizing them as a “necessary evil” in this day and age. Our society has put so much emphasis on instant gratification and worshipping these and other electronic gadgetry that some are downright rude if you don’t just drop everything to respond to the stupid things. When you start to feel compelled to answer your cell phone in the bathroom as a result, something tells me that we have gone too far. That’s too much accessibility. What’s even worse, with all this text messaging the art of prank phone calls has fallen by the wayside. All the fun has been sucked right out of it. No longer can you disguise your voice, call the neighbor to ask if their refrigerator is running or call the drugstore to see if they have Prince Albert in the can. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that but I heard stories.
See you next week…real good then.