The weather is much different from my last report. We’ve had about eight inches of rain since 24 May, bringing planting to a virtual halt with only 50ha out of 230ha of soya beans sown.

I made the mistake of waiting for rain, but with no moisture down to a depth of about 10cm, I was afraid if I dusted them in, a light rain would sprout them and they would die. Huge error in judgement on my part, as we went from no rain to non-stop rain.

My crop insurance agent told me I have until 30 June to finish planting with no reduction in insurance, and I can plant until 15 July with a 15% reduction.

Strong, hot south-westerly winds might allow us to plant in another two days, but rain is also forecast by then. I can take a little comfort in the knowledge most of my neighbours are also not done planting, but as I told my wife last night: “They don’t pay our bills.” On the plus side, my corn looks good where it hasn’t been drowned out, and our grass is excellent.

On an entirely different note, our pastor, who is also our town historian, showed me an old newspaper article about a shipment of 400 head of cattle from our state to Liverpool, England. The article indicated four of these were made in 1896 and reported three of the four shipments made money. This definitely brought up a few questions, with the main one being – was England so short of beef in 1896 that live cattle could be shipped all the way from Kansas at a profit? Were shipments of live cattle from the USA to the UK commonplace in the late 1800s? If anyone could shed any light on this, please email me.

Finally, a friend of mine managed to cut some wheat on Saturday before the rain. I can report that he told me: “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” If we get a period of dry weather, most of the wheat should be ripe by 20-25 June.

Brian Hind farms 1,250ha of prairie land, of which 770ha is family owned plus the rest is rented. Of this, 330ha is arable cropping with maize, soya, grain sorghum, alfalfa plus a mix of rye, triticale and turnips for grazing by 200 beef cattle. Grassland is used to produce hay.