I have a great feeling of relief tonight. Yesterday we finished seeding soybeans. Some were after wheat, some were for the first time, some were for the second time, but every acre we are going to plant is in the ground. Never in my life, not even last year which was plenty bad, has planting been this much of a headache. We are lucky though because I do not have to go very far north or east(about a mile north and 4 east) to get to a great swath of land that was hailed out, and had to be planted over, other than the wheat which was ruined. Some of our stands are less than ideal, I spent several hours yesterday evening with the drill patching in spots that had drowned out or washed out. We have several days of rain forecast, it would be nice to pick up an inch because the corn is already showing alot of stress.
Our temperatures and humidity last week were nearly unbearable. I spent the 4 days on the combine praying that the air conditioner didn't quit. One evening I drilled beans until 10:30 pm after I finished a field of wheat, when I got off the tractor the temp was 90F with a humidity of about 60 % and not a whiff of breeze, that is really miserable weather. Our days flirted with 100, but what made it so oppressive was the unbelievably high humidity. A cold front came through last Saturday and washed some of that out, gave us a half inch of rain, and cooled temps into the high 80s. Sunday felt so much better you just couldn't believe it.
The main task now is haying, I will not be turning a tap though for the next few days as we are celebrating my fathers July 1, 70th birthday Saturday evening in conjunction with the 4th, and then with a meal for many of his friends and cousins on Sunday. I will spend tomorrow trying to make the lawn and farmyard presentable, and Saturday night I will be the chef grilling ribeye steaks for our entire family. We hope to horrify vegetarians with our excessive meat consumption, and global warming zealots with the amount of smoke from both the grill and our fire works.
July 4th to me always is the halfway mark of summer time. Mrs. KF goes back to work in 30 days, from here on out rather than cussing rain we will more than likely be asking, "when will it rain??". Our hottest weather is ahead of us, and in 60 days time we may well turn from lush green to a dusky brownish green. July and August will now determine this crop, along with September, because everything is so late it will be especially vulnerable to frost. We need nearly a perfect 75 days to raise any crop at all, and history has proven there are very few perfect July and Augusts in Kansas.