May’s End

    Wet old May comes to its end wearing Joseph’s cloak of many colors, including the pure white of the peak protruding in the distance like a new tooth in a babe’s mouth.

 

    The peas should be happy, but if they are, they are concealing it.

 

    The radishes, carrots, and spinach have enjoyed the nearly five inches of May’s rain.  The tomatoes have been warming the bench, just waiting to get into the fray.  They don’t appear to be too happy now that they are in.  They are still alive and will get over it, maybe.

 

     The asparagus had to start over after the 26 degrees reached in mid-May.  Like the tomatoes, the patch doesn’t look happy, but it continues to produce.

     The jury is still out on the wheat.  Did the freeze impair it?  It is still trying to head out.  Some of the heads look perfectly normal while a few albino heads pop up here and there.  Those white ones will be politicians, empty-headed.

     Light patches here and there shy away like the rainbow as you approach.  What are they?  I can’t tell.  There is some leaf rust.  What effect will it have on yield and quality?  Oh the joy of being a wheat farmer on the high plains.  No sense in worrying because I can’t do anything about it.

 

    The most disappointing event involved the Ford tractor.  As I was enjoying mowing without having to continually adjust the height of the mower deck, a terrible thing happened.  The front wheels became liberated and went each their own way.

 

    So back in the shop it went.  Exploratory surgery revealed badly worn gears on the steering arms and the pilot gear that runs the arms.  Finding steering gear is proving more difficult than finding hydraulic parts.  I will have parts next week, maybe.

     In the meantime, the weeds and grass in the yard grow unmolested.  If they get too big for their britches, I’ll break out the swather and windrow them.