The Weather Eye made the scurs day with rain materializing, finally. Are the odds of receiving more rain good or will we be in full soybean harvest mode again soon? Starting Thursday, mostly cloudy becoming sunny. Highs in the low 70’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Sunny Friday with highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 60’s. Sunny on Saturday with highs in the low 80’s and lows in the low 60’s. Sunday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of showers. Highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Mostly sunny on Monday with highs in the low 80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Tuesday, partly sunny with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the upper 70’s with lows in the low 50’s. Cloudy on Wednesday with a good chance of rain. Highs in the upper 60’s with lows in the upper 40’s. On the 28th the sun will set at 7:00 p.m. CDT. The September Full Moon occurs on the 29th. Sunday is October 1st. The normal high for October 1st is 67 and the normal low is 44. The scurs are gathering firewood for their recreational fires, contained in a regulation 36” Trash Fire police approved fire ring of course.
The Full Moon for the month as mentioned happens on the 29th and this time around it goes by the Full Harvest Moon. Some years the Harvest Moon is in October as it is the Full Moon nearest to the autumnal equinox. In the days of horse-drawn agriculture, farmers could work into the night by the light of this moon if necessary. The Ojibwe called this the Rice Moon as wild rice harvest would begin and continue for several weeks. The Sioux knew this as the Moon of Brown Leaves or the Moon of Drying Grass. At the ranch it is a Harvest Moon as the fall garden produce takes its place around the yard. It’s also the Bad MN Football Moon. It ain’t looking pretty for the Gophers and Vikings folks.
Harvest was put on hold as we suddenly had consecutive days of measurable precipitation. Some of the TV weather pundits have declared it won’t help farmers and they’re right for the most part regarding this year’s corn and soybean crop. However, if you have pasture and hay ground these fall rains have brought some hope that maybe next year will be better. Both have greened up significantly. If looking at a 4th cutting before plowing the hay up, this should really help. Ditto with being able to graze pasture to stretch tight hay supplies. Also beneficial for fall tillage, soil sampling and anhydrous ammonia application. Crop that was harvested ahead of the rain continued to be generally better than expected. There are areas that haven’t been as fortunate with reports of corn as low as 20 bu./acre. Contrast that with some reports locally of corn running over 200 bu./acre and one has to feel fortunate indeed.
We continue to harvest the fruits of our labor in both the garden and the orchard areas. The pears suddenly became the top priority when they started to blush. The bald-faced hornets that have graced us with their presence obviously like pears too so picking them towards dark has kept confrontations to a minimum. With varying degrees of ripeness, we should have pears for a few weeks. The Honeycrisp apples are ready as well although we’ll need to clean out some space in the refrigerator for them. They keep well so we should have some to snack on for many moons. Of course there are always some casualties as the birds help themselves so need to get them picked as soon as we can. The sheep don’t mind the ground falls but feeding the sheep wasn’t the point of planting the trees.
We were finally able to both be in one place long enough to load up lambs that needed to go to market. Despite the genetics they don’t all make the cut as breeding stock. There are always a few that one has to debate about keeping or shipping. When the cut is made, you never look back. One has to remember the animals you’re keeping are never perfect and those that you don’t have a fault or faults that put them on the trailer in the first place. The drive to Zumbrota is a long and winding one. When the animals are unloaded, they count them, then take your name and address. It’s out of your hands until the check arrives sometime later in the week after the sale on Tuesday.
It’s a little different scenario than the good old days hauling fat lambs to Wilson’s and later Farmstead in Albert Lea. As the lambs ran down the alley, you closed the heavy wooden gates behind them as they moved closer to the scale. Once they got to the scale, the buyer took a look at them and there usually wasn’t much dickering on price. The weight and grade slip was placed in a vacuum tube that arrived for the lady behind the desk upstairs. You walked up the stairs and they cut you a check. You then walked out the office door to the catwalk over the roof of the building, down the steps and you were on your way. When I was a kid up through high school that’s the way it worked. When we started hauling sheep there again nearly 15 years later, same thing from the smell right down to the pea soup green paint on the office walls. Some things never change.
Poppy has been able to see the part of a MN late summer and early fall that she didn’t get the chance to see last year. Given her interest in catching and eating insects, have been a little surprised she hasn’t tried to snatch any of the white-lined sphinx moths as they move from flower to flower. One would think snacking on their stocky little bodies would be right up her alley. She’s curious but so far has left them alone. It won’t be too long and the corn shock along with the mice will reappear in the yard like last October. Poppy will have something familiar to occupy her time with. The cycle will have repeated itself for another year.
See you next week…real good then.