Another week of warm and the scurs may not have the heart to tell folks that it will change. Will it change this week? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy becoming mostly cloudy with a good chance of showers. Highs of 70 and the low should be near 50. Partly cloudy on Thursday with a slight chance of a shower. Highs around 65 and lows dropping to 45. Friday partly cloudy with highs of 55 – 60 and lows near 40. Saturday partly cloudy with a slight chance of an evening shower. Highs of 60 and lows of 40. Partly cloudy and cooler on Sunday with highs 55 and lows dipping to 35. Mostly cloudy on Monday with a slight chance of a shower. Highs of 60 and lows around 35. Jack Frost pays a visit again on Tuesday night. Highs of 60 and lows dropping to 30. The normal high for October 15th is 61 and the normal low is 37. The scurs will be picking out their pumpkins soon for the end of the month gala.
As of the 16th we will be at 11 hours of daylight, having lost an hour and eight minutes since the autumnal equinox. The sun will set before 6:30 on the 16th and rise after 7:30 on the 17th. Time flies when you’re having fun. The Big Dipper continues to occupy its place in the northwest sky after dark as is the case when autumn is full blown. Someone asked the other day what the object was relatively low in the eastern sky not long after sunset. The answer to that would be Jupiter. In the morning relatively high in the western sky an hours or so before sunrise, Jupiter can be spotted shining brightly on the way to the barn. Probably even if you’re not on the way to the barn.
Another week of above July-like high temperatures has moved this crop beyond what anyone would’ve imagined even in mid-September for the calendar date. 99-day maturity corn planted the first week in May was coming out of the field at 12.7 percent moisture. Waxy corn, known for its slow drying characteristics was down to 15 percent. It is almost eerily quiet however with very few dryers running across the countryside even though one knows that harvest is moving along at warp speed. Moisture in the soybeans fell too. Too dry, yes but unavoidable given the circumstances. It’s simply not possible to combine all the soybeans in the area within a couple days, which is about how quickly the moisture fell from 12 percent to seven to eight percent. Rainfall continues to be sparse and spotty with the first measurable precip at the ranch for the month falling on Saturday at .01”. Fire danger in the fields has remained very high and for last week there were at least five fires noted while out and about. The light showers that fell on Monday afternoon did help alleviate it some. If we keep burning up high priced combines, it doesn’t take much anymore for even these light drizzle events to be considered million dollar rains.
Harvest at the ranch is nearing completion. The last of the squash and the gourds were harvested on Sunday. Always amazing how well some of the gourds can hide, not unlike the little fat buddies when there are honeydew projects to do this time of year. The Indian corn was picked and the ears were probably as nice as we’ve ever grown. The stalks somehow withstood the high winds and were tied into bundles allowing me to fashion them into a corn shock. I cheated of course by pounding a steel post into the ground first so those high winds wouldn’t flatten it. Something about a corn shock just says fall is here, especially when surrounded by pumpkins, gourds and Turks Turban squash.
With all the wind, leaf watching turned out to be a situation where if you blinked you missed it. Sure, there are still localized pockets of color with some oaks retaining their leaves such as the pin oak and red oak trees in our yard. Most of the area has been pretty well denuded however. The sheep don’t seem to mind as they’re busy keeping the pasture vacuumed and free of leaves.
Birds continue to move through although activity at the feeders has been slow. There are occasional nuthatches, blue jays and chickadees but no sign of the goldfinches that threatened to eat us out of house and home. It was a good weekend to take down the nectar and jelly feeders however. The orioles have been gone for the better part of a month and the hummers haven’t been seen for a couple weeks now. That and the winds have emptied them for me so there’s little to dump out. Bluebirds have been migrating along with more robins. It’s not unusual to look out the window in the morning to see a robin gobbling down crabapples. In the fields killdeers are numerous and Juncos were spotted in a customer’s grove on the 6th telling me these nice days won’t last forever.
The warm weekend caused me to open the windows once again. It was downright warm in the house Saturday night so the cool breeze felt good as I hit the sack. About six in the morning one of those unpleasant odors wafted inside. Apparently Pepé Le Pew had either been struck by a car or was alarmed about something and nearby too, judging by the strength of the odor. It was also about the same time Ruby had been let outside for potty so it was a little touch and go when Mrs. Cheviot let her back in. No run in this time but given a Border Collie’s propensity to herd cats, birds, lawnmowers etc., it won’t come as a surprise if/when it happens.
See you next week…real good then.