The scurs and the Weather Eye had perhaps anticipated more rain last week and managed less than an inch. Are they still banking on rain or is their account overdrawn? Starting Wednesday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of showers by evening. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Thursday, mostly sunny with a fair chance of rain. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the upper 60’s. Partly sunny Friday with a modest chance of rain. Highs in the upper 80’s with lows in the low 70’s. Saturday, mostly sunny with a modest chance of evening showers. Highs in the low 90’s with lows in the low 70’s. Mostly sunny on Sunday with a modest chances of rain. Highs in the low 90’s with lows in the low 70’s. Monday, mostly sunny with a fair chance of morning showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 80’s with lows in the mid-60’s. Mostly cloudy for Tuesday with a modest chance of rain. Highs in the mid-80’s with lows in the mid-60’s. The normal high for July 26th is 82 and the normal low is 62. The scurs are looking at the calendar for the next celebration with goodies. Halloween is a long ways off.
More good crop progress sans the wind and hail present well to our north. Most of the area corn tasseled this past week and pollination so far looks excellent. A timely cool down and some unexpected showers early Saturday morning didn’t hurt. With lows in the low 60’s once the front passed through it was hard to believe it would reach 90 on Saturday but it did. Soybeans too were beneficiaries of the rainfall, moving many fields into the R4 stage quickly. Soybean aphids are becoming easier to find although they are nowhere near threshold yet. Threshold is 250 per plant on 80% of the plants with numbers increasing. There has been a push by some to include insecticide in with their fungicide applications on soybeans for a variety of reasons. This is the same mentality that allowed soybean aphids develop resistance to synthetic pyrethroids. When dealing with an insect population that is all female in season, born pregnant, and is capable of doubling in population every two to three days, well, do the math. Exposing aphids to an insecticide unnecessarily increases the odds we’ll select for resistance and shortens the time an insecticide will remains an effective tool. We humans remain slow learners.
The car club made a cruise to Spring Valley and my hometown A&W last week. Thursday was an almost perfect day. Temperatures reached the low 80’s and the skies were as blue as they get. Our fearless leader led the way and found some of the smoothest roads for cruising in Southern MN. Everyone and their automobiles including the Silver Hawk made it there in one piece. No one in the back of the pack even complained of running over parts that fell off either. With all the venues closed due to COVID it was a breath of fresh air to get the vehicles out and let them run. The food was good and after an informal meeting to talk about what we might be able to find for activities. After that we headed for home and at last check, everyone made it safely. The work Ike & Co. performed on the Studebaker worked to perfection. Not only did it stop the heat emanating from the heater core under the front seat, the switch installed made it easy to turn the heat back on for fall cruises. Nice to have options.
There have been some notable occurrences including the first morning glory flowers on the 17th and the first cicada of the summer at the ranch on the 18th. Actually we heard one on the cruise as we passed through Dexter but that doesn’t count. No produce resulting from the garden yet although we were lucky to get our hands on some sweet corn courtesy of a kind donor from Waldorf. The sheep were appreciative too of the husks and silks that came their way over the fence. I’m sure they’re convinced there will be many more feedings. They are probably right. If there’s one thing we do well in MN it’s sweet corn, always among the leaders in US production. Some of that toilet paper people were hoarding a few months ago might come in handy about now.
The hummingbirds have taken a break recently but the orioles appear to be picking up steam. A lot of young orioles are coming to the feeders right now. The amount of activity reminds me of when they first appear in the spring. A lot of acrobatics and jockeying for position at the feeders. The catbirds have also recently reappeared making me wonder how many of them are young birds as well. As a result we’re going through about three quarts of grape jelly per week. Pretty sure they’ve figured out at Wagner’s we’re not making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with all of it.
Mrs. Cheviot has done her usual bang up job of planting and maintaining the planters and pots at the ranch this summer. Pollinators have been enjoying the fruits of her labor with numerous bees, butterflies and hummingbirds casting their votes. Even the toads have gotten into the act. When grilling some nights on the patio I spied a large toad and was happy to see it patrolling the area for winged biting insects. Earlier Mrs. Cheviot had complained that something was digging in one of the succulent pots up on the patio landing. I suspected it was likely four-legged and tree dwelling. I even stopped putting ear corn out for the squirrels as I tired of their burying corn and digging it up in the garden. It stopped the garden digging but something continued harassing the succulent planter. Could it be the toad she wondered?
A few days later I stopped by the house at noon to manufacture some lunch and noticed there was a large toad sitting in the pot. It was behaving itself so I left it alone. Could this be the culprit? I left and didn’t happen to check the pot that night after chores. The next morning I looked at the pot something had been digging in it. Sure enough when I looked more closely, I saw a toad’s head sticking out of the moist soil in the pot. I grabbed the amphibian and took it down to the barn where there were many toads happily hopping around gorging themselves on the fly population. The next day it was back and Mrs. Cheviot flung it off into the yard in disgust. The next morning it was back again so I relocated what I thought was the same toad once again into the road ditch where it was shaded and moist. Seems we not only determined what was digging in the pot, we also discovered we had a homing toad. Or several.
See you next week…real good then.