Thought quite a bit of the day about blogging about harvest, then read about Richard Cobbald's fire and his remarks about the fire service and decided to blog about that, but after going outside to put my pickup in the shed and seeing the nearly full moon, I was back to harvest.
Our planting dragged on forever this spring, so will our fall harvest. We only got 80 acres of soybeans planted in the ideal window and I have combined 55 acres of that this weekend, they are just barely ripe, but given the forecast once again of heavy rains from tomorrow noon on through Tuesday night, I pushed them through. The mostly cloudy day did not lend itself to good combining, and the tall sappy beans were like running barbed wire through the combine. The yield is excellent, nice to say that for a change on this forum, perhaps in excess of 50 bpa, which is outstanding in our part of the world. Sadly, once I get through these first 80 acres the yield will drop considerably, but it still looks like we should have above average yields over all, now if we can just do something about the price. About half my corn is shelled, again the yields are good, even the wet ground where water drowned out a good portion of the stand yielded about 90 bpa, or about 2.25 of your UK tons, about an average yield for dryland corn here.
4 months ago the world was wringing its hands over the "global food crisis" now here we are with grains dropping like a rock. Lower corn should be good news for our corn dependant US cattle trade, but the effects of the bank meltdown are spanking the beef markets harder than grains, and cattle prices are tumbling. A quick glimpse at the video auction on TV Friday at noon showed many of the lots no-saling. Word from the Drovers Journal update was that bankers are now requiring more equity in cattle, driving down the prices for feeders and for lighter stockers going onto what should be some excellent wheat pasture given all the rain. Since cattle are my bread and butter, the situation has me concerned. I will not sell the calves I am about to wean until March or early April, I can only pray this thing recovers but my gut tells me that it probably will just get worse.
Speaking of weaning calves, fall harvest and bawling calves go together, that is another job that I should start next week, it would be nice to have dry weather for that, as we do not house our cattle as you do in Britain. 500 acres of my rented pasture runs from April 20 to October 20, I will need to get cattle off of it next Monday. Hard to believe it will soon be time to hook up the silage wagon and start feeding again, where does time go?
The title of this blog is "harvest moon". The moon tonight is brilliant, a term used I think more over there than here, but it applies especially tonight. It always amazes me to think that same harvest moon shines on my good friends in the UK, and how so many miles apart it illuminates so many of our common problems. Economic crisis and election rhetoric aside, good prices or bad, it is still alot of fun to cut 50 bushel beans on a dry Sunday afternoon, without the 4WD kicked in....sounds like we will be looking out from the shed at the rain for the next couple of days, so I can blog about the fire service then.