We have in this country a candy called "Jolly Rancher". I was offered one one day by a landlord, I said I would rather have a grumpy farmer as that is what I generally am. He was tickled by that and from then on referred to me as "the grumpy farmer".
The reality of our situation, or at least mine, has made me a very grumpy farmer, but given I have alot of time on my hands this week at night because my wife has gone to a workshop on autism(to help her with her job, not understand me) I am trying to look on the bright side. The dark side is, we are racing to June 25th the cutoff on planting soybeans for crop insurance, and in reality the cutoff within a few days depending on the rest of the summer for them to have any chance of being a good crop. I have mentioned I think I have planted them after wheat as late as the 12th of July, but that is just a huge crap shoot. Soybeans are my main cash crop, and I had hoped this might be the "crop of a lifetime" with the price as high as it is. Seems like there is no chance of that, there is even a chance as I look at the rain marching toward us on radar yet again that perhaps they will not get planted, at some point it will become ridiculous to waste the seed.
The bright side is that the corn is beginning to look pretty good, especially that on the thinner soil that loses the moisture the quickest, just the opposite of what is usually the case. And, the price of corn continues to astound us all over here. The situation in Iowa would suggest that we have a chance of it getting higher, especially if the cornbelt goes into a dry snap. This is hard on the livestock end, but remarkably the fat cattle futures continue to climb on the CME, and this is keeping feeder cattle at year ago prices even with the prospect of $8 corn. Cull cattle are high priced as well, I am going to try to gather 13 culls tomorrow to sell. I guess one has to be glad that there are some bright spots, but when I look at my unplanted fields I get pretty gloomy.
However, it could be worse. My neighbor, who is a very good farmer and does things right, dumped Roundup in his sprayer instead of crop oil and killed about 30-40 acres of non RR corn. To make matters worse, it was the best looking corn in the area, and according to my Brit cousin who came down from Canada the best looking corn in the USA he had seen in the 3000 miles he had put on his rental. So, while I am not done planting, at least I haven't murdered any of the crop I do have in the ground.