Aw Hail

       It didn’t look like it would amount to much.  I could keep disking, I thought.

      But then, it started sprinkling.  Within five minutes, it was really letting its hair down.  I was headed for the house when the ice started falling and the wind really picked up.

     I rode out the storm in the tractor cab.  It didn’t seem so bad at first.  The trees didn’t lose any leaves.  The weeds didn’t get knocked down much.  The rain gauge showed a half inch.

      That was Saturday afternoon about 3:30.  We took off for the weekend Sunday morning.  When we returned on Wednesday, nothing looked quite right.  The wheat seemed prematurely ripe, losing its green color.  Some of the grass around the farmyard, which I hadn’t mowed for three weeks, showed signs of damage, drying up, not rank and green as it should have been after a rain.

      About 8:30 Thursday morning, I called the insurance company to report Saturday’s hail storm.  By 10:00, two hail adjusters pulled into the yard.  They had been nearby, checking out hail damage.  They stopped in because they were close. 

      I was greasing tractor and disk, getting ready to try to finish disking the newly chiseled ex-crp ground.  It has been a long haul.  Taking a week to empty a grain bin that should have been done in two days, two flat tires on the new tractor, various and other breakdowns, I am behind in my work.  Nothing too unusual about that, I guess.

      I started disking and the crop adjusters took about 45 minutes to do theirs.  They waited for me at the end of the field.  They didn’t have much good news. 

      Maybe three to five bushels per acre, he said.  Damage?  No, expected yield. That’s what’s left. Ouch.

      The heads were not finished filling.  Damage to the plant would prevent the filling process from finishing.  What was left would not be very high quality, low test weight, for example.  Plus, severe weather such as wind and heat would further deteriorate the quality of the crop.

    Options.  Let the crop stand.  Plow up the crop.  Hay the crop.  Harvest the crop, three-to five bushels of poor-quality grain.

     Not too many good options, for sure.  It’s too late in the season to plow it up and get anything planted.  The neighbors have moved a swather into position, apparently ready to make hay of their ruined crop, when it dries up enough.

      I will explore the possibility of having someone make hay out of it.  I don’t need any hay, so I would have to try to find someone who does need it.  With the wet spring we have had, good-quality hay will probably be abundant this year. 

     So, it looks like leave it stand, the fallback option.

      Anyway, it wasn’t a good year to lose a crop, having bought “new” equipment and all.  I guess there’s never a good year to lose a crop.  That’s why you buy crop insurance.

     “Into each life some rain must fall,” old Longfellow wrote and the Ink Spots sang.

     Hold the ice, please.