Knee high!

Looks like a good crop so far this year... the corn has much more than made knee high by the 4th of July, as shown by my little assistant.

Hope you all (in the U.S.A) have a wonderful Independence Day holiday weekend! And the rest of you have a great weekend, too. ;)

Heading to the finish line

I took this photo one gorgeous morning a couple of weeks ago. The fields ripe-for-harvest looked so golden and beautiful that morning.

Yesterday that cornfield got harvested. It was the last one to go. Here's the combine on the left just after emptying its load into the catch cart on the right.

The loaded cart then heads off to empty into a waiting grain truck.

Here comes the combine, taking 8 rows at a time.

Look at how shiny and clean that corn head is, from getting constantly polished by the corn stalks and leaves.

The rest of the combine is not so clean, after having harvested many, many dusty acres of soybeans and corn. You can see the dust in the air as it heads back into some more rows.

Below is the catch cart emptying into the truck.

And so it went for a few more hours until the field was emptied of its corn. Harvest is now complete for 2014, and the combine is tucked away in the shed for the winter. Hurray!

If you want to see the combine in action, look at the video on last year's post. Noting the date on that post, I see that we finished 6 days earlier this year! It's still not record early by any means, but not record late, either. One year they had to finish in the spring. Yup, it snowed too much too soon. So we're always thankful when we don't have that kind of a harvest season!

"Golden hour" photos, Part 7 (final)

The sun was setting quickly as I was taking the last of my "golden hour" walk photos. I was next to a cornfield, which made for a pretty silhouette.

There went the sun:

I turned around and took a couple of pics on my way back to the house.

Yep, about ready for harvest!

When I got back up to the yard, I noticed this pile of twine, and it seemed so totally incongruous with what I had just been looking at, that I had to take a picture of it, too. Ha!

I hope you enjoyed my walk. I'll probably do it again sometime and try to capture more fall colors. I'll be sure to share with you if I do!

Harvest time

I took these pictures over a week ago. They're quite outdated, as harvest is almost finished, but I wanted to show them to you, anyway. I've noticed different times when driving along the roads this fall that the fields of grain, harvested or not, had such a beautiful, bright golden color to them this year. I don't remember ever seeing them quite like that before. The leaves are even somewhat shiny. I can only figure that it must be because of the dryness. Other years they seem much more faded and dull-looking.

I tried to capture that pretty goldenness in these photos. Click on the pics to enlarge them and see it better.

This one below particularly shows the shininess.

Here are some close-ups, just for fun.

All the above corn is gone now. Harvest has gone amazingly fast this year, with minimal breakdowns and especially with no precipitation to hold things up. Of course, the farmers haven't had any break, either. They've just kept going and going and going. But by the end of the week, everything should be pretty much wrapped up in this area, with only tillage left. I think it's record-setting early, and the yields have been good, despite the lack of rain.

Knee high

Here's our little corn tester, checking to see whether the corn is knee high yet or not. Poor little girl... Grandma made her go out in the 98° heat just for this photo! But we made a quick trip of it. We survived.

The verdict is in... it's knee high by the 4th of July! Ha... and then some! It's also beginning to tassel already. And it really needs rain... not to mention a little less heat. But I guess we take what we get.

I hope you all have a nice Independence Day holiday today. Stay cool!

Velvet and silk

Does anything in this photo grab your attention? (Click it to enlarge, and maybe it'll grab it a little harder.)

This grabbed mine, and I couldn't resist getting the camera again:

It looked so velvety. But of course after it opened up fully, it looked like the solid-colored ones on the right in the top photo.

And as for the silk, it's time for another corn update:

(Click to enlarge.)

Just one day later

When I went out to get the mail a couple of hours ago, I noticed it. That corn is starting to tassel! So of course I had to head back to the house for the camera to document it. (You'd better REALLY appreciate it, Mark... 'cause it was 94° out!) Here's the proof:

While I was at it, I snapped this field of alfalfa. The windrows were turned over this morning to aid in drying, so hopefully it'll be ready to bale (without rain, mind you!) tomorrow.

Here's another field that hasn't been turned yet:

(Hmmm... why didn't I crop off that mucky cattle yard? Oh, well... too lazy to do it now.)

It's been miserably HOT and HUMID for the last week. But, in case you didn't notice, I've refrained from whining about it on the blog. It's been awful, but not as whine-worthy as last winter. ;)

Oh, and remember my plains coreopsis that I showed you last Friday? The heat has taken its toll and matured it (and a lot of other things) way too fast. This is what it looks like this afternoon:

Guess there'll be plenty of seeds for next year's garden, huh? Eek.

Click any pic to enlarge.

This just in...

The latest corn update, taken moments ago:

This isn't the same spot she stood in for the photo two weeks ago (Mark will be observant enough to know that already). I did take a picture there, but it didn't turn out well. Because of our horrendous humidity, the camera lens had fogged up. This spot has taller corn so looks nicer, anyway. ;)

All the rain, heat and humidity does make the corn grow!

You can row it, Mark!

Click any photo to enlarge.

Not too bad, considering the spring we've had, huh?

For you non-farmers.... it's a field of corn just coming up. :)

And lest you feel left out, here are a couple for you, Cindy:

The lilacs are just beginning to open.

Wish I could send you some fragrance! :)