Soybean harvest 2015 complete

Here's a video I took last evening as there were just a few rounds left to combine in the last soybean field. Sorry, but you'll have to view it on a computer in order to see it, I believe. It's a pretty impressive combine, though. :)

(All that dust. Is it any wonder my allergies kick in big time this time of year.)

Now it's time to start combining the corn......

Golden fields

As I was mowing Friday evening, I couldn't help noticing how beautiful the fields looked in the soon-to-be-setting sun.

Remember this field from just over a month ago?

This is it now:

It's ripening fast...

... and will soon be ready for harvest.

There are a lot of soybean fields in various stages of maturity around the countryside. We have some that are about ready to combine, where others, like this one, were planted later and have a ways to go yet. But they'll be changing fast.

Incidentally, in case you wondered (I'm sure you all did)... this is what I mow with:

I figured as long as I'd stopped and had the camera out, I'd snap a pic of it, too. It's kind of a monster machine, and I love it... it covers a lot of ground in a hurry!

Crop update

I had another request for current corn photos. This is what the corn here looked like on Wednesday:

Keep in mind that this is not one of our better cornfields, at least not this area of it. But it's close to our yard, so that's why I took the pictures here. It's producing nice ears, though:

But some of the corn is pretty short, to say the least. This is right next to the corn above:

Heehee... not too great, huh? It's because the ground is pretty shallow there, I think because that's where our old house got buried after we built the new one 35 years ago. With the dry conditions we had for a few weeks this summer, the corn just quit growing and started drying up. Here's another look at just how short it is:

But the recent big rain perked it up, and some of that little stuff is still producing ears!

Now if you want to see a really nice-looking crop, check out these soybeans!

The whole field is tall and beautiful!

Barring any unforeseen nasty weather tricks, we should have a bountiful crop once again!

Random fallness, part 2

Here's our final soybean field as it looked at the time of my walk yesterday morning. Yep, a rather large wet area out there.

Note the water standing in the rows, too:

Here's another section of the same field (look beyond the pasture that I'm standing in). The black areas are where water had stood after the big rain:

The soybeans got combined out there today. The driver of the combine managed to get mighty close to the water, without getting stuck!

Here he goes in that part of the field that had those black areas:

The breeze had nearly died, and the dust was really hanging in the air.

The sun went down as I was taking those pics tonight:

(Click any photo to enlarge.)

And not long after that they finished up the field, and our soybean harvest is complete for this year. The soybeans, BTW, (for all you farmers-at-heart) were extremely dry. It's very rare to hear a farmer complaining about his crop being too dry as it comes out of the field!

Tomorrow on to the rest of the corn (that hasn't already been chopped for silage or combined wet and put in a silo).

Oh, and I believe we hit a record high temperature today.... 87°! Crazy weather!

Rain, rain... went away!

Remember the new lakes from just a week ago? Although there is still plenty of water left standing in other areas, at least these particular "lakes" are gone except for just a bit of water in the ditch.

We've had a string of perfect fall days (well, perfect if you don't count the new crops of mosquitoes, Asian beetles, noseeums, and boxelder bugs... not to mention the "fragrance" that comes with the north breeze from the neighboring dairy lagoon... *sigh*) this week, drying things up quickly.

As you can see in the photo below, the soybeans are being combined. Click the pic to enlarge it, and you can also see that they've had to skip a few, though.

And look below at how dusty the beans are. Yesterday as I took these pics, there was no breeze, so the dust was just hanging in the air.

That's a neighbor's combine. Grandpa and company have managed to get a lot of beans out this week, too... without even getting stuck in the mud. That's progress! And more beautiful harvest days are in the forecast! Hurray!

It's almost time!

Here's Farmer Courtney checking the soybeans. Looks like they've come a long way since she last checked them exactly a month ago.

Lookin' like a good crop!

Checking the crops

Goodness, it seems like Miss Courtney's been AWOL from the blog for a while! Too many bugs, huh? I'll bet some of you have been having withdrawals! I did get the camera busy with her yesterday, though, so you'll be seeing more of her soon!

Here she is checking the soybeans. Look how tall they are, Mark!

For Mark

:-)