Today's Thoughts - November 20th
Today was one of those days where I felt lucky I was able to each my lunch. I didn’t get a lunch break, but I was able to inhale my mom’s vegetable soup out of a tupperwear bowl in the middle of a dusty field.
It’s November 20th, and we haven’t had any rain yet this Fall. In some cases this has been nice, and in others, not so much. But we can’t have the best of both worlds. Corn harvest was pretty smooth sailing because of the lack of rain. We also planted our alfalfa a little late this year. A little pre-irrigation wouldn’t have hurt, but our fields can get so wet after a rain, there’s a chance we wouldn’t have been able to plant at all. We pulled ditches and started prepping for our first alfalfa irrigation. With no rain in the forecast we would need to irrigate just to get our alfalfa growing.
My dad plans to level a few of our fields next year. Corn is normally harvested in September, October, and sometimes even into November. By the time we get the corn out of the ground it’s too late to level the field. Like I said before, a lot of our fields can get very wet this time of year and can even disk up mud right after the corn is out. When my dad knows he wants to level a field he’ll plan on planting triticale the year before. Triticale is a hybrid of wheat. It’s planted in the Fall and harvested in the Summer. We planned on hiring someone to plant the triticale this year, but he wasn’t going to be able to make it till Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. And look at the weather now, calling for rain on Wednesday.
As soon as we saw the weather change we knew we couldn’t wait. My dad called a friend who had a grain drill and asked if we could borrow it. The clock was ticking. We needed to get all of our grain in before the rain. My dad and his guys worked full days, through the weekend, to get everything going. Today we started to see the finish line. By 3pm all the fields were planted. My dad was out on the motor grader putting in drains. For the most part we are prepared for the rain. We still have some final touches we are hoping to get done first thing in the morning, but if it starts raining we will take it!
Side note from all of this, I am not a fan of the sun going down at 5:30pm. The last few days I turned into a blob when the sun went down. I said not today! I went out with a lantern to work on my chicken coop! Ugh. There is still so much that needs to be done. Unfortunately, the only time I’ll be getting a break is when it’s raining. I guess I’m going to need a good rain coat and some good rain boots.