Our warm, dry fall came to an end on Thanksgiving day with a slow three inches of rain. Cold weather set in, with ice the following Friday.

The drought had gotten severe enough that the previous two weeks had seen a number of wildfires in the county, nothing like what they’ve seen in Australia lately but worrying enough.

The largest blaze burned around 200ha and 400-500 big bales of hay. A neighbouring county had a fire that travelled six miles and ended up being three miles wide.

See also: Read more from our arable Farmer Focus writers

All the fires started in our fire district were caused either by welders or power lines snapping in winds that at times gusted over 50mph.

Humidity below 20% combined with the winds made the fires very hard to fight. 

In our county we rely on two types of trucks to fight prairie fires – pickups with 300-400 gallon tanks that can get to a fire quickly, and retired military 6×6 trucks that are slower but carry 1,000-2,500 gallons of water.

When fires break out on days of low humidity and high winds, dispatch will send several divisions to fires to begin with.

As conditions warrant, more stations will be called, and in extreme cases we will call neighbouring counties to send help, all of it volunteer.

Everyone realises the importance of getting a handle on the fire as quickly as possible.

I received payments in November from the US Department of Agriculture for the 2014 year under our “new” farm programme.

Two-thirds of my arable ground (we are only paid on arable) is administered by the Greenwood county Farm Service Agency office, and one-third by the Lyon county office because my farm straddles the county line.

The total payment from Greenwood was $318.00 (£210), from Lyon $1041.00 (£690), which makes no sense.

I believe this illustrates how little of a safety net the programme provides, and how skewed the payments are.

The only payments for 2014 in the two counties where I farm were on soya beans, don’t ask me to explain why only soya beans drew a payment or how the payments were figured.

The people who crafted this did a very poor job of coming up with a fair and equitable way of figuring payments.

It is remarkable to me we are at the end of another year. I hope all of us are able to deal with the challenges 2016 will surely bring.

Brian Hind farms 1,250ha of prairie land, of which 770ha is family owned and the rest 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