Mother Nature stepped on the gas again and the scurs made the Weather Eye work overtime to forecast more beautiful August weather. Will it come to its fruition or be wishful thinking? Starting Wednesday, sunny with a slight chance of evening showers. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Thursday, mostly sunny with highs in the mid-70’s and lows in the upper 50’s. Sunny Friday with a slight chance of an evening shower. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Saturday, mostly cloudy with a fair chance of rain. Highs in the low 70’s with lows in the low 50’s. Mostly sunny on Sunday with a slight chance of showers. Highs in the low 70’s with lows in the low 50’s. Monday, mostly sunny with a modest chance of rain. Highs in the mid-60’s with lows in the upper 40’s. Mostly cloudy for Tuesday with a modest chance of rain. Highs in the low 60’s with lows in the low 40’s. On September 25th we fall below 12 hours of daylight and on the 28th the sun will set at 6:59 p.m. CDT. The scurs are scouting the stores for the best buys on Halloween candy. Then they are telling their neighbors.
Harvest has officially started after making one wonder with cool overnight lows last week. The breezes began to blow last Friday with temperatures warming from the mid-60’s to the upper 70’s by Monday. Soybeans changed rapidly although there are many who checked them and decided they weren’t as ready as they appeared from the road. Some samples moisture tested out of the field at around 13% but when loads sat on the truck overnight, they were closer to 15%. Still plenty of green beans in those samples. Smoke from the wildfires has also been a factor. The sun hasn’t had the punch it otherwise might. Yields have been decent for early varieties with anticipation that the later varieties may have the upper hand, taking advantage of the longer growing season. Corn silage harvest is largely over with and there have been scattered reports of early maturing hybrids being in the mid-20’s in moisture. Yields are tough to pin down yet the anecdotal evidence is encouraging, well over 200 bushels per acre.
At the ranch we got our final cutting of hay put away for the winter. Not that it wasn’t a challenge. The cool overnight temps and the smoke from the wildfires forced the hay cut Monday to lie until Friday before it was dry enough to be raked. Prior to that it was about like pipe tobacco in moisture. When it was raked, the orchardgrass made nice big fluffy windrows that flattened out and blew around in Saturday’s breeze. When the dew came off making it fit to bale later afternoon, running the baler was like driving a NASCAR race with a yellow caution flag. It meant zigging and zagging trying to fit the windrow in the baler pick up. In places the wind made them too wide so had to just take what I could get.
When the Big Dubya dumped the last load to the ranch, it made nearly 230 bales of 3rd cutting off of just under five acres. That meant about 500 small square bales total going into the winter. What a difference a year makes. Last year we had plenty of round bales, but only 80 small squares of second cutting. Third cutting never materialized as it rained most of September and October along with staying cold. Eighty bales wasn’t going to last long feeding 35 ewes with lambs at their side. Much of last winter was spent procuring hay from various sources. Promised myself I wouldn’t allow that to happen again. Thanks to the Dubya’s, I’ve kept that promise.
Speaking of the Dubya’s, the cover crop seeded after the peas came off made me curious what they might do with it. I had my answer one late afternoon coming home from work. Their beef cows and calves were grazing inside the newly installed electric fence surrounding the forage mixture. They looked so pretty, nice and slick in the lush green growth. What made for an even more pastoral scene was our brood ewe flock on the hillside. They were busy staring across the road at the cows kitty corner to their pasture. Our ewes aren’t lacking for condition either after bountiful rains kept their pasture lush this summer. Fruit and vegetables probably haven’t hurt either.
I probably should’ve written something in last week’s column about Tuesday’s autumnal equinox although meteorological fall has been here since September 1st. I think most people can look out the window and figure that out. While it doesn’t last long enough, fall is one of most people’s favorite seasons. Why? For starters, lawn mowing finally slows down. At the ranch for instance, Howard the orange mower has taken an early break after five hour a week bomb sessions. After not charging the battery and relying on the battery charger most of the summer, neighbor Jon allowed me to bring the aging machine to his shop to repair the charging system. As I told him, it’s no rush. I’m in absolutely no hurry to do more lawn mowing. If Howard returns before winter to grind up leaves that’ll be plenty soon enough for me.
Pockets of fall colors are making themselves more evident each day. A patch or two of sumac has begun to turn red and there are some ash and soft maple turning in the yard. The autumn blaze maples are beginning to turn reddish and even the oaks are indicating it won’t be long until they reach peak color. Our expected peak should be in the next two weeks. The warm summer and early fall has definitely moved the trees along rapidly just as it has the crops. We typically do have some pretty color although it generally doesn’t last very long before the wind blows it all away until the next year. Then we get to clean it all up and start over again.
See you next week…real good then.