Tired

Everyone is tired from the heat. Farmers are tired from the heat and the rush. If the AC doesn't work, it isn't safe to be a modern farm tractor cab today. It will cook your brain.

AC is a big problem on the farm. Farmers use a lot of older tractors and equipment where the AC was an after thought and not real reliable. Very few are trained on these AC units.

We went from cool wet right into hot and dry overnight. Our bodies never had a chance to adjust. I am tired when I get up in the morning from the day before even after a good night of sleep.

I did wake up at 4 AM this morning and kept drifting in and out of sleep until I just got up. It is already 70 outside but a dew is on so a little early to be spraying yet. Spray jobs are inconsistent until the dew burns off.

Today's predicted high of 95 degrees should finish off our soft red winter wheat growing season. Our wheat crop has taken a huge amount of stress and I don't expect big yields but hopefully decent yields. It will be key to double crop the beans RIGHT behind the combine before that moisture escapes.

It's June 8 so many farmers are calling their insurance agents on the Preventive Planting acres. We decided to go ahead and plant everything since it is still planting pretty good. If it is a record dry summer like the record wet spring it may be a poor decision. We won't know until much later and we will know for sure at harvest.

My wet wheat farm needs to be tore up and put into beans. I drove around in it yesterday, yes there are that many bad spots that I could drive around in it and I don't think there is enough wheat there to combine it. I don't own a disk, it needs deep disking to incorporate the residue so it is going to be ugly no matter what I do.

I farmed real ugly this year with all my fields covered but I know they will look better at harvest. All that cover will protect the soil and the baby seedlings in this heat. They were predicting a cool down for the weekend and now it looks like the cool air to the north can't penetrate the ridge and it is going to be hot instead.

It is what it is and I can't change a thing, only my perspective on the situation and how I respond to it.

I didn't have perfect stands last year and I sure don't this year either.

I shipped a case of barbecue sauce to my friend in Nebraska for a rib cookoff Saturday and he just emailed me that he didn't get it yet, drat. Now I have to look up the receipt where I insured it and I have piles of receipts scattered everywhere.

That is one of my character defects.

Ed