Tag: drought

The drought is over!

It’s official! The drought of 2012 is over! Hooray! BUT, the flood of 2013 has begun! It won’t stop raining! And when it does, it only stops for a day or two, then rains again. The few days in between rainy spells won’t let the fields dry out enough for us to continue to plant. Here’s this week’s forecast:

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Will we get our corn planted by the May 31 deadline for crop insurance? Will we get our soybeans planted by the June 15 deadline? It’s out of our control at this point. The weather is the weather and Mother Nature makes all the decisions around here.

Us farmers are never quite satisfied, are we?

More rain please!

Since my last posting, we have only received 1/10th of an inch of rain in our part of Iowa. That is 1/10th of an inch in an entire month! I’ve been too depressed to write about anything else….

The upside to the lack of rain is that commodity prices have been making records. This week, corn was over $8 and soybean prices were over $17. It’s unheard of! But, and there is always a ‘but’, these prices will ration demand and hurt us long-term. (sigh)

It’s so sad to see such viable plants so incredibly thirsty. I wish I could take my garden hose and water them all, day after day.

In Europe, they are getting an excess of rain. Our friend and fellow farmer Jesko and family informed us that it has been too wet to harvest their small grains. Hay has been cut, but cannot be bailed because it rains everyday. Their temperatures are cooler than normal. Global warming anyone?!?!?!

We can’t control how much rain we get, but we humans can control how much waste and pollution we create. Recycle! Buy green (not the John Deere kind of green) and be eco-conscious! We can all do something to help save our planet from ourselves.