Another banner week of forecasting for the scurs and the Weather Eye. Is September looming, or do we have six more weeks of summer? Starting Wednesday, partly sunny with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the upper 50’s. Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the low 60’s. Mostly sunny Friday with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Saturday, sunny with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the mid-50’s. Mostly sunny on Sunday with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the mid-50’s. Monday, mostly sunny with highs in the mid-70’s and lows in the mid-50’s. Partly sunny for Tuesday with a modest chance of rain. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the upper 50’s. On August 25th the sun will rise at 6:30 a.m. CDT and set at 8 p.m. CDT. The normal high for August 25th is 79 and the normal low is 58. The scurs will be scraping together enough money to get plenty of candy to get them through September and October. Halloween is still a long way off.
Crops continue to march along locally. As expected, reports of early planted earlier maturing corn starting to dent were common this past week. Several soybean fields followed suit being R6 or right on the doorstep. R6 stage is that where the beans fill the pod cavity in a pod at one of the uppermost four nodes with a full sized trifoliate. Soybean aphids with numbers still rising are unlikely to pose much of a threat in most fields once this is achieved. Somewhat of a surprise were spider mites noticed in drought and otherwise stressed areas. Not something one expects to see when rainfall has been abundant, but they’re there. Beneficial insects are becoming more numerous with multi-colored Asian ladybeetles, both adults and larvae being spotted. Lacewing eggs were also evident. Some beneficial fungal pathogens were detected this past week as well. Insects being taken out were grasshoppers, leafhoppers and green cloverworms. Green cloverworm moths have been numerous and many reports including those from a former pygmy goat farmer and at the ranch indicate that they have become a nuisance. They’re attracted to light and they seem to take advantage of any opportunity to get inside a house.
This is the week of August I’m on the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour. This tour had some added excitement this past week as a derecho rolled through parts of IA, IL and IN. Pictures on social media painted a picture of lots of flat corn and property damage. One always has to be careful when viewing social media that you don’t get tunnel vision and prejudice yourself into thinking that every field looks like that. That’s why we actually get out and measure the damage in random fields rather than taking it for granted. On our trip to Columbus, OH, we saw some flat corn, but at least at this point, it looked like more on social media than what was in the fields. There was plenty of property damage, from bin sites, trees, buildings and power poles. Indeed, fleets of power company trucks were seen heading into IA from all over the country.
Leaving home for an extended period of time is always somewhat bittersweet. It involves a lot of preparation and tying up loose ends. I filled the jelly feeders, knowing they probably wouldn’t last until my return. Additionally, I also filled the oriole nectar feeder full, as they’ve been working on that other times when the jelly feeders have run empty. The chickadees were scolding me too, so I made sure their sunflower feeders were cleaned out and refilled. The lawn also needed mowing, so ahead of Friday night’s spectacular thunder and lightning show, I managed to finish what I’d started. Ruby helped on the latter, her white socks stained green once again. When packing my suitcase, she got up on the bed amongst the clothes I was putting in my bag and gave me “the look” to make me feel guilty.
As mentioned last week, the cucumbers continue to be plentiful. The full-sized tomatoes too have begun to bear. One of the Jet Star variety was about as pretty a tomato as I remember ever picking. I purposely picked it early, as we had two small hail events last week. Sure letting them ripen on the vine is always nice, but getting them pummeled by the hail isn’t such a great idea. It seems like the picnic bugs can spot distressed fruit and vegetables a mile away. The pears continue to ripen on the kitchen island. Hopefully they’ll be ready to sample upon my return from Crop Tour. Or they’ll be ready to toss over the fence to the sheep along with more ground fall apples. The sheep at the kindly neighbor’s pasture will have to settle for the acorns that are dropping. Subtle signs of fall are starting to close in.
See you next week…real good then.