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Liquid Gold

My grain-farming neighbors have chopped their corn for sileage, and others not too many miles away that gave up on their soybean crop for dead, have baled it to save what they could. Cattlemen have re-installed the bale forks that came off of their pick-ups once the spring rains turned the grass green. Scorched pastures have forced us to feed big round bales of hay to our cow herd and supplement their rations with extra grain. For the first time since we moved here, we are glad we don t have our numbers up right now. The streams are dry. You can walk across the creek bed without getting your feet wet.

Some of our friends and neighbors have started to sell off a few cows here and there to take the pressure off. Still others are continuing last year’s ritual of hauling water from municipal supplies to their livestock operations because of low water levels in ponds and streams. When a friend from Iowa came to visit last week-end, she asked why we had sprayed the grass and trees along the creek. We hadn t sprayed anything. They were dying of thirst.

So many consecutive days of temperatures hovering around 100 degrees and a heat index out of this world had us all walking on eggshells around one another. So many days we at Brownfield Network watched with anticipation as the green mass moved across the computer screen, in hopes the rains would come to mid-Missouri.

Many a hot and sticky evening, Jim and I would sit outside the barn and listen the rumble of thunder in the distance and watch Mother Nature s light show come and go, spider webs of electricity above us, bearing no more than a sprinkle or two in the dust.

When the rains did come last Thursday afternoon to Jefferson City, people at work gathered in the reception area to watch through the big panes of glass as the heavens opened up and that magic liquid fell from the skies to feed their dying yards, flower gardens and, for those of us involved in production agriculture, our ranches and farms.

As I pen this column on Labor Day, I celebrate the total of 3 inches of rain we have received since this storm front moved over Moniteau County, Missouri last Thursday night. The rains have been gentle and steady, breathing life back into this part of the planet. The yard around this big old farmhouse a few days ago was brown and dusty, but is already beginning to green up and grow. Even the trees that had dying leaves are showing signs of life again. Maybe now I will have enough tomatoes to put up salsa this year. The zinnias in the garden are lifting their colorful heads, and the okra is blooming again.

Not every part of the corn belt has suffered from drought this year. As a matter of fact, Garry Niemeyer who farms near Glenarm, Illinois, told me during the Illinois State Fair that he has the best crop he s grown in 33 years. He s suffered drought in the past, though, as all of us involved in production agriculture have and will again.

Armed with a toolbox full of new hybrids, pesticides, herbicides, tillage equipment, the best fly control and nutritional plans for our livestock, computer programs designed to help us find the best rental option and weed control methods,we are still unable to control the one factor that has the most impact on our livelihood. Weather.

If I hear one person complain because they could not take their boat out on the lake this Labor Day week-end because of the weather, I will not be responsible for my actions.