Signs of fall are all around us. The leaves aren't changing much yet, but that will come soon enough. This week has been beautiful! Temps near 70* and low humidity...ahhhh...Just a little chill in the air...enough to pull on a flannel shirt first thing in the morning.
Fields that were once full of lush, green corn have been chopped for silage. (Our Amish neighbors have just now finished chopping their corn that went down during Hurricane Irene and Tropical storm Lee.) Most of the hay has been baled, but not quite. Next we'll be thinking about combining and picking corn. After that there's corn fodder to bale...so the work isn't nearly done!
The corn fields that remain standing, mostly look like this...
How do we know when it's the right time to combine?
Corn with a moisture level of 15% is considered dry. Any more moisture than that, and we pay a fee to have it dried. So...this morning my job was to collect a few ears of corn and shell them out. Then I took them to the feed mill to have them tested. The result? Too wet. We'll probably test it again in about a week. In the mean time, Jim has been busy disking behind the barn where the corn was chopped for silage. He hopes to seed barley there as a cover crop, and harvest it late next spring.
Another sign of fall is the appearance of the bean fields.
The field away from the camera was planted on June 6th. It's drying down quickly! The field closest to the camera, also beans, was planted on July 8th. Look at the difference...
Those late beans have the appearance of being planted much more than a month after the first field, but we checked the dates, and they are correct. The weather played a huge part in how on behind they are. Right after the second field was planted, on July 8th, we had several weeks of no rain.
Thankfully, we had rain just in time, and now they look great! (When I'm mowing along side the field, I like to take handfuls of green soybeans and munch on them as I go. They're quite tasty!)
So here we are...harvesting what was planted...again. The cycle never ends...I think it goes by more quickly every year!
I agree the seasons fly by more quickly each year. I just don't know where the time goes.
ReplyDeleteyep the cycle never ends! We are harvesting as we speak, i haven't taken any pictures yet, i hope maybe this weekend i can do just that!
ReplyDeleteI like to see the corn when it is green but it sure is beautiful to see the colors of the trees turn color!!!
big hugs
Leontien
NowI learned something else about corn! Thank you!
ReplyDelete