After hitting it with a ballpeen hammer, the scurs may have the Weather Eye back on the right track. Does our consecutive days without rain streak continue or do the scurs need a bigger hammer? Starting Thursday, partly sunny with a good chance of evening rain. Highs in the mid-70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Partly sunny on Friday with a good chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Mostly sunny on Saturday with highs in the low 70’s with lows in the low 50’s. Sunday, sunny with a modest chance of evening showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the low 70’s with lows in the low 50’s. Partly sunny on Monday with a good chance of rain. Highs in the mid-70’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Tuesday, partly sunny with a good chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the mid-70’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Partly sunny on Wednesday with highs in the upper 70’s and lows in the upper 50’s. On June 28th, we’ve already lost over one-half minute of daylight. On July 1st, we’ll see our last 9 p.m. sunset of the summer. The normal high for June 28th is 81 and the normal low is 61. Bad news: The scurs sneak peek at the July 4th forecast. Mostly cloudy with a good chance of showers and thunderstorms. High in the low 80’s with lows in the mid-60’s. The good news: No snow!
Another brutal week of rainfall just passed. We went for eight consecutive days starting June 16th with measurable precip. We recorded 7.18” of rain in that time frame and 7.35” in Bugtussle. More insult to injury Saturday when a nasty little storm left those in town without power until mid-evening and hailed on several area fields as well. Some operators would just as soon it had put the already ugly crop out of its misery, although one needs be careful what you wish for. You just might get it, along with some of the unexpected consequences. A lot of soybean fields remain to be sprayed as of this writing with virtually no progress made last week. Although not perfect, the forecast this week looks more promising. Some soybean herbicides cannot legally be aerial applied, and others will soon be off label in terms of soybean development. The clock is ticking.
The garden has some of the same water issues. One of our main reasons for moving it to its present site was the fact it’s on a south-facing slope. Theoretically, it should dry faster and be better for vegetables that don’t like wet feet. That is until you get more than a foot of rain in the month of June. A sidehill seep has developed and as a result, we have had water running through the sweet corn and string bean plantings. The sweet corn came up well, as did about half the string beans. Looks like stabbing in more in that planting and another planting could be made sometime around July 4th when the soil conditions are fit. So far we’re off to a good start on pumpkins and squash as well as decorative gourds. Cucumbers are more hit and miss, with about half the hills having plants in them. Only one zucchini too, so may have to stab in another few hills of that. Tomatoes and peppers are holding their own, although they too could use some sunny, dry weather. Couldn’t we all?
So how have the sheep and the lamb crop done since weaning a few weeks back? The first day or two was a little noisy, but since then, the only time you hear a peep out of the ewes is when some get separated from the main group. Otherwise they’ve been eating constantly with no shortage of tall, green grass. The ewe lamb that decided she needed to stay with the brood ewes was plucked out of that group the next day. When I placed her in the pen with a market ewe, she managed to climb over the top of the 4’ high panel. Even so, she remained in with the group of lambs rather than running loose in the pasture. The lambs too are focused on eating, getting some grain to go along with some good quality hay. They’ve really blossomed with the removal of competition from the brood ewes. We put some panels in the possible escape routes just in case there was another jailbreak. So far, no encore performances.
Another Back to the 50’s car show is in the books. The Silver Hawk was cleaned up within a reasonable level when we left for Falcon Heights Saturday morning. Traffic moved through the I-35 construction zone smoothly. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and, after some rainy stretches Friday and Saturday, people were out in droves. It took a little longer to get in the gate than some years as a result. Saw all kinds of old cars of course. Lots of old people too, although there were a lot more younger folks than in recent memory. Took in the swap meet for the first time. All my secretary and I could think of was loading up all the junk already in our garages and hauling it around from place to place. No thanks. There were some interesting items, not all of them necessarily automobile related. Luckily it all stayed on the fairgrounds and didn’t come home with us. We got on the road around 2:30 and sailed out of the Twin Cities in fine shape, the Silver Hawk able to go with the flow of traffic. South of Northfield, traffic on I-35 slowed to a snail’s pace and stopped on several occasions. We ditched the traffic snarl at Faribault and came home the scenic route on the backroads. Nothing better than a good old-fashioned crop tour to end the day’s festivities.
Poppy has had more people time with all the wet weather. She also gets more exercise following us around and playing indoors while waiting for the weather to change. The garden taking shape doesn’t hurt as she’s drawn to it like a magnet. She’s developed a little Corgi trail where she chases her squirrels and bunnies coming off the porch. It also extends on towards the garden. There, she’s discovered new prey to chase in the form of striped gophers. The slope is littered with their holes. Almost caught one the other night as the rodent didn’t know quite what to think. There was a lot of commotion by both parties involved. There has been little evidence of gopher activity ever since these encounters started. It’s nice to know that someone’s keeping the garden safe from varmints and Poppy is enjoying her job. As long as she doesn’t start digging holes, we’re good.
See you next week…real good then.