Harvest 2017

      It’s wheat harvest season.  There’s no wheat for me to harvest this year.  After contacting the crop insurer, the decision to destroy the wheat was fairly-easily made.  The insurance adjuster estimated the crop at ½ bushel per acre.  

      One-half bushel per acre doesn’t quite get my seed back, not to mention the nightmare of trying to thresh wheat that has more weeds than wheat.  The decision to destroy was easily made.  How to destroy it?

     After an extremely dry fall and winter, the spring turned wet.  Just getting the summer fallow disked was a chore.  The weeds and wheat to be destroyed were getting bigger by the day.  I couldn't handle both, summer fallow and destroy the wheat.

     I turned to Neighbor Jim (no relation at all to my brother-in-law) for help.  When things dried out a little, which turned out to be the middle of May, Jim disked out the “wheat” in about eight hours, a job that would have taken me four days. 

     Meanwhile, I finished the job of oneway disking, which I started in April, on June 2.  Last year’s heavy stubble kept weed growth down and protected soil from drying by sun or breeze.  It was still plenty damp when I finished the job.

      There were a few weed escapes from the first disk operation to destroy this year’s wheat, so Jim disked it again on June 5.  Two weeks later, he planted organic Prozo millet.  It was hot and dry.  Some of the millet emerged.

     

Then the weather changed.  It got damp and cool.  On July 7, it rained. 

      The millet loved it.

      But it is wheat harvest season.  The weather has turned cool and damp.  It figures.  Even though I have no skin in the game this year, I still feel the frustration of having Mother Nature conspire against us in this part of the country.  The harvest monsoon.

     It has been a dry year.  I don’t hear anybody complaining about the damp weather.  We need the moisture.