Not exactly the most delicate of titles, but after alot of thought the most accurate. To bring everyone up to speed, after almost 6 weeks where we got I believe about 16-18 inches of rain, usually in 2 or more inch toad strangler rains, suddenly the switch has turned off. This left the last 100 acres of soybeans I planted a week ago yesterday(Thursday) under one inch of crust, because 4 hours after planting we got 2 inches fast and hard. On Tuesday I was down to 48 acres of my own left to plant, as it was dad's 69th birthday I thought it would be nice to let him drill some soybeans while I cut wheat. On the first pass without warning the tractor sunk in the field, buy the time we got it out(2 and a half hours later) the dual carrier wheels on the drill had sunk over their tops. I intended to turn this in on my crop insurance as a prevented planting, but now there is a glitch(isn't that always the case with insurance??) that may prevent me from getting paid. Raced to get ahead of the promised rain Wednesday evening, planting a mix of Sudan and crabgrass for hay on ground that I was going to put into soybeans while dad planted soybeans on the last of his ground. After threatening us for 2 hours with lightening, the clouds broke apart, no rain, never a good sign, unless you consider a shift to no rain for weeks a good sign. This did allow us on Thursday to plant some harvested wheat ground to soybeans, which means save 21 acres that I have decided to plant to Sudan for hay, and the 24 we sunk in, we are done save a few wet spots, and now, I desperately need a quarter to a half inch of SOFT rain to break the crust. If I do not get this by Monday morning, I have no choice but to replant the 100 acres. It is so late now, the absolute latest I have ever planted first crop or replant beans, have planted to the 12th of July on double crops.
All this has put me in a bitter mood, but it could be worse. My best friend farms about 1500 acres of tillable over a 25 mile drag. Had 300 acres just planted crusted by the same rain that got me, and 100 unplanted acres rained on Wednesday in an ironic and cruel twist of fate, rain where he didn't want it and no rain where he needed it most. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, we both contracted soybeans for 2008 at 9 bucks last fall, because we had never had the opportunity to do that before, now they are $16, and we may not raise enough to fill our $9 contract.
Our normally jolly elevator operator is grumpier than I am. He does about 90% of the spraying in the area, and is way behind, with farmers chewing on him every day. I offered to ride with him today to keep him company as I felt so sorry for him working on a holiday(this is not true, I think it is good for him to finally have a little stress) and he told me he didn't want to talk to me anymore, how rude!!
That is the story from this side of the pond, in retrospect I think the summer of 2008 is kicking alot of butts over here.