I don’t think I can remember a wetter August and September since I started farming back in 1984. I remember one September getting seven inches of rain in one storm. That was the first year I farmed the farm north of town. If you can call running your brother’s equipment farming. To me it felt an awful lot like working for a brother. I’ve done that too many times to count and it’s not felt good since I did it to get out of working for Dad. So it’s all relative, literally. The year of the seven inches was 1988. The first drouth I farmed through. Yields were cut in half during a time when I was farming for half the yield. Try explaining to your new landlord that everything in the bin is everything the farm grew, not his half.
The reason I remember the seven inches was the gullies it left in the fields. 1988 was the first year I tore a wheel off a combine. I tore both rear wheels off along with the axle they pivot on. If you’re going to break it break it right I always say. When they fell through the ground tight into a little tire sized bowl that had washed out under a little four inch gulley I was crossing I didn’t get it stopped until they had rolled up into the straw chopper that ate itself and one of the tires. We could get the axle welded back on but the chopper and wheel was a total loss. I don’t think my brother ever forgave me for tearing up his toy. We parted ways soon there after and haven’t talked much since. Even though we live only a couple miles apart.
I was watching the water run out of fields and the creek top it’s banks the last real heavy rain and the thought of my first bad gully experience came to mind. Here we are a few weeks away from harvesting a crop that has seen nothing but heavy rains ever since it was planted. If there ever was a year to tell us where we need to plant something to hold the soil this one should be it. What’s worse is that this last few storms happened again in a standing crop that can cause pools of water to back up increasing the chance for little tire sized bowls to cut out under the soil’s surface. It could be an interesting fall. Watch where you step and watch where you drive this “fall” season. I’m still healing up from my last fall a few weeks ago.
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