I'm Beat

I've had a cold for over a week now (I'm going to the doctor tomorrow - yeah, it's bad). That coupled with the heat is really getting to me. I slept until 7:15 this morning, which rarely happens. I had to convince myself to get up and shower a little bit ago, or else you might've smelled this blog coming. I helped Dad clean out a grain bin this morning, walked fields with my Stine DSM (actually, regional manager now), and then helped Dad with a pivot that had a bunch of sand in the overhang. Except, I'm not sure how much help I was today. I'm sore and tired all over.

I'm also mentally tired. Walking fields made me want to barf a few times. I have two Channel numbers that look like holy hell - 216-61R and 207-02R. The 216 pollinated in the worst part of the heat, apparently. You would think it's dryland corn by the looks of the ears. The 207 is on some sandier ground and has Goss's Wilt pretty bad. I hope we get 150bu/acre on it, but I doubt it. I also have some Stine that has Goss's wilt (9731), but I only planted 2 bags, so I suppose that's good news. I'm giving up on my fight against sunflowers and weeds in general. Hopefully, the field I have lined up to get sprayed will get done sometime in the next couple of days. It looks gross. Oh yeah, all of my dryland corn is dead and most of the dryland beans will be dead by the beginning of next week.

I don't think harvest will be much fun. The only ray of hope I really have is that the irrigated beans look pretty good. I'm hoping they yield well and make up for the loss on the corn, because I really don't see the irrigated corn yield being there with the combination of heat, bad pollination in places, and Goss's Wilt.

I've been surprised before, though.

Sorry if this is a downer. I'm just tired of this year. I think most guys around here feel the same way, and maybe most farmers in the country. It's really hard for me to see all the work and money I've put into a crop, knowing that if it would've only been 90 degrees when the corn pollinated instead of 102 and we would've caught a couple of timely rains, I might be looking at a lot of 180-200bu/acre corn. But, if this is the life I'm going to live, I better learn to deal with it. Weather is fickle, and so are people, but if I remember that God is going to provide and bless, life seems a lot better.

As Ray Wylie Hubbard says - "The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days."