The natives have become restless. After another hot, humid week they’ve demanded the scurs take the Weather Eye in for repairs. Will this cure our weather ills or are we doomed for another week in the hotbox? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with a good chance of evening showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Thursday, cloudy with a good chance of daytime showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the mid-70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Mostly cloudy on Friday with a fair chance of daytime showers. Highs in the mid-70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Saturday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Partly sunny for Sunday with a slight chance of showers. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Monday, mostly sunny with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Partly cloudy Tuesday with possible a.m. showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 60’s. The normal high for July 20th is 82 and the normal low is 62. On the 20th we’ll be down to 15 hours of daylight, approximately the same as we were back on May 23rd. After stopping at Bruzek’s Hardware, the scurs are heading to Jedeloh’s, the local AMC dealer. Time to get the Weather Eye checked out once and for all.
More corn tasseling and pollinating this past week. One can smell the dramatic uptick in the corn pollen in places. So far the earliest planted corn that has pollinated locally looks tremendous and is in milk stage. It varies however. Depending on planting date, flowering date and maturity, some is just pollinating, some is blister stage and some is milk stage. Very little disease pressure has been noted and that’s a good thing with prices where they are. Soybeans also are heavily into reproductive stages. Some of the early planted mid to early maturity soybeans are already at R4 which is full pod stage. That means there is at least one pod at one of the uppermost four nodes with a fully expanded trifoliate having a pod ¾” long or longer. Soybean aphids have been found although it remains too early to know the magnitude of the infestations we might see. The past two seasons we’ve been fortunate and spraying was generally not warranted. Again, with prices where they are, avoiding unnecessary applications and expense wouldn’t hurt most farmers’ feelings.
Several have expressed the opinion that the mass spraying of insecticides on the soybeans for aphids means the end of the mosquito problems. Perhaps although it’s not always a cause and effect relationship. Corn fields are seldom sprayed with an insecticide and trust me, they harbor plenty of mosquitoes. Many times the mosquito populations may have already run their course for several reasons. Even with our present infestation, their numbers are dwindling somewhat as the standing water necessary for them to reproduce dries up. Their numbers are also affected by predation and the females of some summer type mosquitoes only live a few weeks. An encouraging sign: Making the circuit around the pasture fence once again the other night, repellent wasn’t required. It does little good against the numerous deer flies.
We are seeing some garden progress. The tomatoes are beginning to stretch and set fruit while the cucumbers planted last weekend benefitted from the rainfall Thursday night and Friday. The string beans planted on the 8th were coming up over the weekend. Lucky for them they’re already inside an enclosure to protect them from the bunnies. I heard from other gardeners who weren’t as fortunate. As disappointed as I am in our garden, misery loves company after seeing the vegetable exhibits at the Waseca Co. Fair last week. At least if we get normal temperatures from here on out we’ll still have some fresh vegetables. And the fall garden planting is already looming on the horizon, slated for late July if the soil conditions are fit. The fall radish and green crop, not to mention the snap peas are a special treat, sometimes making an appearance on the Thanksgiving table.
The local car club made a run last Friday to Williams IA and the car museum known as the Hemken Collection. It was different than many collections in that most of the vehicles were unrestored, in much the same condition they were when purchased from their original owners. There were lots of rare cars, convertibles, and of particular note were the numerous Packard’s. The Packard was not a common automobile when I was a lad. They generally had a reputation as large luxury cars and most in the collection were just that. The exception was a ‘58 Packard Hawk, essentially a sister to the Studebaker Golden Hawk only in Packard’s clothing. Only 588 were sold.
At first glance the tail fins and roof line are the same. Unlike the Golden Hawk’s Mercedes-like center grille, the Packard version had a sloping hood complete with a fiberglass “fish mouth” front end with gold Packard script. Also included was a more streamlined rear end with a decorative spare tire bulge on the trunk lid. The interior was leather and included a padded arm rest outside the windows. It also came with the same supercharged Studebaker 289 V8 that developed 275 hp, making it one of the fastest production cars at the time. Only the 300 Chrysler was faster. The story Ann Hemken told was that the family of the elderly gentleman who’d owned it had the supercharger removed for fear its speed would be the death of him. A wise move. Those Hawks were capable of eating the Corvettes and Thunderbirds of the day for lunch.
When we were finished with that we were right across the street from a place to eat called Cheaper by the Dozen. The Hemken owner had called the little restaurant and the owner agreed to stay open long enough so we could eat. And eat we did. Breakfast anytime was one of the specialties so that’s what everyone had. Another niche was the numerous ice cream flavors for dessert so we couldn’t pass that up. I picked up my driver’s lunch and along with the ice cream (I had a root beer float with 16 oz. bottle of A&W root beer included) the bill was only $12.99! I was full and couldn’t believe how inexpensive it was. Afterwards, the proprietor visited with us for quite a spell outside as we reminisced about the cars we’d owned and some we still do. It was time to go home although being from small town USA, it felt like we’d never left.
See you next week…real good then.