The scurs got the rain forecast and even though it was parceled out it was still a welcome sight. Will we see more this week? Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy with a slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm. Highs near 80 and lows around 60. Thursday, mostly clear with highs of 80 – 85 and lows of 60 – 65. Mostly sunny becoming partly cloudy on Friday with a slight chance of a shower during the day and a slightly better chance of showers overnight. Highs 80 – 85 with lows near 65. Partly cloudy Saturday with a modest chance of showers increasing by evening. Highs 80 – 85 and lows around 60. Slightly cooler for Sunday under mostly sunny skies. Highs 75 – 80 and lows of 55 – 60. Partly sunny for Monday with highs around 80 and lows near 60. Slightly warmer and mostly sunny on Tuesday with highs of 80 – 85 and lows around 60. The normal high for August 20 is 81 and the normal low is 58. The scurs will be hitting the food stands hard at the Steele Co. Fair as a warm up for the Great MN Get Together the following week.
After going o-fer the first third of the month, some nice rains fell over the weekend. While they were metered they were still welcome. Oh sure, the gloom and doom crowd has already weighed in that it wasn’t enough to maintain the crop that’s developing out here in the field. While that may be true in some respects, maybe they’d be happier if we didn’t get any rain at all. We may not have the crop we could’ve had but then we never do. We have a better crop here than many places so we’d better be thankful for that at the very least. Personally, I love to hear some thunder and some rain on the roof this time of year. Some early planted, early maturing soybeans are pushing R6 so the heat we had during July and the first part of August really moved things along quickly. Some early planted early maturing corn showing some denting already too so the corn is on the same page. Sweet corn yields have been respectable but no record setting yields are being talked about.
The area bird watching has included the sandhill cranes once again. Almost scared the bejeezus out of me one night while I was weeding the garden. It looked like three small airplanes were circling over my shoulder. At night they have been holed up by the pond letting out that almost creepy hollow call. This of course upsets Ruby to no end causing her to woof loudly. With me it just causes me to tell Ruby to be quiet then roll over to go back to sleep, glad to hear them once again. Speaking of hearing birds again, the chickadees that were setting up shop in the windbreak figured out that the goldfinches were hanging at the feeders for a reason. Now the chickadees flit back and forth when they find an opening, knowing the sunflower seeds are ripe for the taking. They’re a good guide too as when the feeder gets empty, they’ll hang upside down from one of the perches, trying to get an angle on one last seed stuck in the opening. The final nest of wrens appears to be on the wing as are the last of the tree swallows in the nesting box at the kindly neighbors. It is quiet now in the morning with no wrens or robins singing, only the sound of goldfinches and hummingbirds. Fall is edging ever closer.
In the garden the string beans are about ready for the first picking. The mosquitoes that were the bane of all lawn and garden enthusiasts have slowed immensely with the drier weather. This makes it more pleasant to find those zucchini that suddenly grew from 12” to 24” overnight. The first planting of sweet corn is coming to a close. It lasted longer than I would’ve guessed given the heat. The second planting is coming on although it may have some colored kernels due to the close proximity to the Indian corn that took its sweet time to tassel and silk. Oh well, it might look more like eating a bowl of Fruit Loops than an ear of corn.
Was in the mob movie watching mode with such notables as Scarface and The Godfather the other day. Oddly enough, I never get the chance to watch any of these in their entirety. Someone usually calls and interrupts or I fall asleep. So with that in mind while drowsily channel surfing one night, decided to watch what I thought was a show about a mafia hit man. The show is called Billy the Exterminator and if any of you have ever seen it, you know that it has nothing to do with the mafia. As the name implies, it has everything to do with a guy looking like a biker from Louisiana who goes around killing cockroaches, wasps and rats as well as catching snakes, javelinas, raccoons and squirrels, etc. The show kept my interest and I couldn’t look away; must’ve watched 3 episodes in a row. Just something fascinating about watching someone getting stung or bit and coming out on top without resorting to excessive swearing and nuclear weapons.
See you next week…real good then.