I've been fortunate to have been invited on a few "vermin control" days recently - you know, the vermin with feathers and long tails - and very enjoyable those days have been too. The sport has been good and the company too. But plodding about on wet land has made some of it hard work.
I can't remember a wetter autumn than this year. Here we are in the "dry" east of the country looking at land drilled with wheat (well some of it - more on that later) with great puddles of water standing on top of high land. The soil beneath must be totally saturated and any fresh rainfall just stays on top for days before it can penetrate and filter down to the drains.
The trouble is there are still many fields of sugar beet to lift and I can only imagine the amount of damage the harvesters and trailers will do when they try to harvest them. There are also, as indicated above, many fields intended for wheat this year that have not been drilled. Frankly there is little prospect of them being planted. Maybe once it is realised how much winter corn has not been planted the price will respond a little. For once the land is as wet as it is now, lack of sun means it tends not to dry before the spring.
Its also a long while since we had significant snow in this area in November. We had five or six inches a couple of weekends ago and that left its contribution to soil moisture. Now its freezing every night. OK, we've all complained about mild winters in recent years and the need for a hard one to kill the bugs and the aphids. But as I sit here in the office wearing several layers to save on the heating bill I am feeling a little less enthusiastic about that idea and looking forward to April.