Sure enough, just as the scurs were told, The Weather Eye’s encore heatwave arrived right on schedule. Now can we be done and get some rain or does the desert continue? Starting Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 70’s and lows in the upper 40’s. Sunny Friday with highs in the mid-70’s and lows in the low 50’s. Sunny on Saturday with a slight chance of an evening shower. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the mid-50’s. Sunday, mostly sunny with a good chance of an evening shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 70’s. Sunny on Monday with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the low 50’s. Tuesday, cloudy with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 50’s. Mostly sunny with a slight chance of a passing shower on Wednesday. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the mid-50’s. The sun will set at 7:30 p.m. CDT on Tuesday the 12th. The normal high for September 12th is 74 and the normal low is 52. The scurs will be waiting with bated breath, hoping that AMC brings out another car as exciting as the Gremlin or the Pacer.
In a more typical year we might welcome weather such as we’ve had ahead of harvest. Unfortunately, it appears that this time is different. Corn that was half milk line last week suddenly has been pushed rapidly and prematurely to physiological maturity. The result is likely to be lighter than anticipated test weight corn and less than ideal kernel depth. I left what were some nice-looking ears on Friday in the pickup over the weekend. I was shocked to see on Sunday how much the kernels had shrunk. Not only that, in the field, stalks that were dead with ears already tipped down were kinking over when giving them the lean test.
While I had no soybeans roasting in the cab over the weekend, what I saw on Friday wasn’t positive either. Several pods on the plants exhibited pods that had been aborted or soon would be. More signs or premature ripening as well, some of it disease related and some just because there was no moisture to take up and they were dying. Sad to see it ending this way after getting our hopes up at the end of the 1st week in August. It’s as though someone put the Soup Nazi in charge of rainfall.
Silage harvest has been going on in earnest now for a couple weeks, depending on where you are and what was planted for silage corn. Definitely time to get after it upon seeing the half milk line corn last week and experiencing the blast furnace over the weekend. Silage yields and estimated crop yield for insurance purposes have been all over the board across the state. Some places have been as low as 15 bu./acre with others as high as in the low 200 range. Making corn silage is a lot less involved than the good old days when corn was bundled, shocked, hauled from the field and run through a shredder. From there it was either blown into a silo or into an area of the barn depending on what the intent was.
As it’s turned out, apparently I was one of the few in my generation outside of the Amish ever to operate a corn binder and actually shock corn. Many moons ago, I wrote about the experience, although I can’t remember when. We’d experienced a late August frost in 1974, so Dad borrowed the neighbor’s McCormick corn binder, and we shocked about 7 acres in a low area that froze. Operating the ground drive binder was fun. Since this model had a bundle carrier, you had to be thinking about where to unload 8 - 10 bundles into piles once they accumulated. That made it easier and more efficient for the shockers, which turned out to be me and the neighbor kid. That part wasn’t nearly as fun.
I had the good fortune to get up close and personal with a corn binder recently, this time a John Deere power binder. It was also left-handed where the McCormick I’d used almost 50 years ago was a right-handed model. There was no bundle carrier on this John Deere binder, although the drive mechanism for it was intact. Ideally, Dad said the bundles should contain somewhere in the vicinity of 7 – 10 stalks. Otherwise they got pretty heavy and awkward to handle. The shocks should also consist of 35 – 40 bundles in order for them to stand on their own. He was right as he usually was. Some of them stood in the field all winter as we retrieved them, feeding the bundles to the beef heifers he had purchased.
So when and why did corn binders die out? Corn binders became a common piece of farm equipment starting in the late 1800’s and increased in popularity as steam and tractor power became available. Silos were also being erected on more farms in that timeframe. Power take-off binders or power binders appeared in the early '30’s, although with the Great Depression and later WWII, they weren’t as popular as they might’ve been. They had some definite advantages, including rubber tires, making them better in softer soil conditions. The beginning of the end came about when pull type choppers arrived after WWII through the mid-1950’s. This eliminated the process of making bundles, shocks, and hauling all the bundles back to a stationary shredder. IH made corn binders through 1953, although they could see the handwriting on the wall prior to that. As C.H. Wendell wrote in 150 Years of International Harvester, “Few people missed the corn binders when they were gone.”
Poppy took the heatwave in stride. She’s figured out where the air conditioning vents are and likes being in their proximity. She still comes outside at chore time, but it’s usually cooled down then, so she gets her requisite zoomies in. Poppy’s found new creatures to pursue as frogs have recently appeared in the lawn. Gardening continues to be one of her favorite pastimes, especially the string bean patch. One night while picking beans, I heard this strange munching noise. Sure enough Poppy has developed a taste for string beans. She’s still eating crickets, too, so that cuts down on the pesky chirping in the house. As we like to tell her, it’s a darn good thing you’re cute. There’s been some anxiety on her part though, as we’ve been on the road so much lately. Could tell when Labor Day Monday rolled around that all was right in her little world. An extra day with her people.
See you next week…real good then.