Case in point. In mid-August, Journal reporter Clay Schuldt called and asked if he could talk to me about the drought and its impact on area farmers. Pam can attest that I had been talking to her about that non-stop all summer. She was glad for me to have someone else to complain to. I said, “Sure.”
The next day it rained two inches. By the time the Journal’s Agribusiness section came out a week later with a large front page photo of my sad visage (see right), we were up to five inches of rain, on our way to eight. Oh well. If me looking like a doofus is what it took to break the drought, so be it.
People were probably thinking I was angling for some kind of government drought payment. I wasn’t. Honest. I admit I enjoyed the steady flow of money during the Trump years. Now I’m told a socialist is in the White House, and the free money has stopped. Go figure.
As a farmer, the only thing I know for sure is that every year will be different. This growing season was more of a roller coaster than most. A dry spring gave us perfect planting conditions. Then a cold May caused things to start slow and uneven. That was followed by a June with crazy-record heat. We got to see three-foot tall corn with its leaves curled which was bizarre and awful to look at.
July and August came with their typical hot days. Through it all, the constant was little rainfall. A couple of storms dropped rain on a few blessed fields. But for most of Minnesota, our typical inches of rain were only tenths this year. It was our worst drought since 1988.
Rain did come on August 20 and the weeks since. Talk among farmers has been about how much benefit there is in these much prayed-for rains. The consensus is that the soybeans should see yields boosted. We were in line to get awfully small beans with pods aborting by the day before the rain, and that should have been made better. Corn? Not so likely to benefit. By late August, corn is what it is.
It’s harder to measure this, but I think it did us human beings good to see green come back to the landscape. An increasingly brown and parched Earth was not healthy for plants or our mental states. The rains meant lawns came out of their dormancy, but also a greener hue seemed to return to all floras. Our late summer flush of green came just before the seasonal turn toward fall, when green naturally fades from the scene. And we all know that winter is on the other side of fall when green becomes a distant memory.
The late rain means tillage should go better and the fields will be in a better place going into next spring. But it also kept us a little saner in these weird days we’re living in. I’ve never been so happy to mow lawn.
Nature couldn’t allow me to forget who is in charge, though. As if I ever doubted that. On August 28, I was at a wedding reception in New Ulm. There was a chance of thunderstorms that night. But skies were blue when I ducked into the Event Center.
A bit later, as the salads were coming out, I overheard someone say something about “tornado by Sleepy Eye.” I had left my phone in the car and tried to discreetly sprint out to the parking lot. I called Pam who was back at home. She was just then heading to the basement, which caused some heart palpitations on my part, and I suspect hers.
I ended up with others outside the Event Center on our phones as the sky darkened over New Ulm. I’m not sure how this would have gone without cell phones. But after a while, I ascertained from Pam that our farm had strong winds but no tornado. I finished my meal and visited a bit more before heading home in the rain.
There were some large branches and a big old cottonwood tree down in the grove. No damage to buildings. We were thankful for that. Then in the fading light, my attention turned to the fields. There was some corn tipped and/or broken. In the days ahead, I came to learn we had damage, dependent on the field and the variety. The plants were weakened by the drought and susceptible to falling.
Our farm was about where corn fields south of me were worse off and north, not so bad. It’s impossible to tell now how harvesting will go in our fields. I suspect it will be no fun. We’ll see.
Some of the fields south are much worse. It’s painful to see crops this close to the finish line stumble and fall. All the money and effort has been put into them. Farmers know we don’t have that crop till it is in the bin. But it’s especially difficult to see it on the ground now.
I was thinking about how different every growing season has been in four decades of doing this. Year after year, the things I do change a little, but not a lot. I adjust my tillage, seed choices, weed control, timing, and equipment. Weather is the input I don’t control, the most important by far. I forgot to add prayer to my list of inputs, but it is one.