Seventy days surely have changed the scenery around Damphewmore Acres. We’ve gone from green, lush Eden-like conditions in June and July to brown, cracked-soil, tinder-dry conditions in August, September and so far October.
We’ll not be having a frost-induced leaf-turning this fall because the dry conditions have caused most of the leaves to already fall from the walnut, ash, hackberry and peach trees. The hedge, oak and maple leaves may hold on until frost comes, but I doubt there’ll be much fall color in them.
The dry late-summer weather sure stunted the late-planted soybean growth and development, but it has augmented a fast harvest of the early-planted beans, The corn crop is already in the bin and my neighbors tell me it was probably a bit better than usual.
I dusted in a couple of chicken food plots two weeks ago, and the seed just laid there until I scratched out a 7-tenth-inch shower a week ago during a passing cold front. Today, I noticed the wheat is coming up and some of the alfalfa seed, but the plots will need more rain soon if the seedlings are to survive.
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Most of us “oldsters” will tell you how silly we feel when we go somewhere to do or get something, but, when we arrive at the destination, we forget what we came to do. Sadly, it happens to me at least once a week.
Anyway, one of my good Old Boar’s Breakfast Club buddies, ol’ Pickett Hupp, has hit upon a solution to the embarrassing forgetful moment. When the forgetfulness hits him and he’s standing there trying to remember, he solves the problem by just picking up any nearby item and taking it back to his starting point. “Usually, before I get there, I recall what my original intent was,” he told me.
Sounds like a plan. I might use it — if I can remember it.
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I read that one of the appellate courts in the nation has put on hold the Environmental Protection Agency’s immediate implementation of the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) regulations.
I applaud the court’s decision and hope it holds permanently. The last thing folks in production agriculture need is having to worry about the EPA throwing its regulatory weight around while they, farmers and ranchers, try to make a living from nature and at the same time try to conserve and protect both soil and water.
Former president Dwight Eisenhower once said something to this effect: “It seems easy to farm when all you have is a pencil and a desk a thousand miles from the soil.”
I’d paraphrase wise Ike by revising his quote to: “It’s easy to regulate agriculture if you don’t have any skin in the game.”
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I’m a baseball and college football fan and recently my favorite teams have caused me to have “yo-yo” mood swings. I wuz sad when my college football team at Bea Wilder U. lost a couple of close games in the last minute.
But my mood turned to happy when the Kansas City Royals won the American League Division Series over the Houston Astros in five games. I realize my chances of staying baseball happy through the American League Championship Series, against the Expos, and the World Series are remote, but at least I’ll get to watch more exciting post-season baseball. Plus, you never know …….?
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Folks from out-of-state often scoff at my stories of good fishing in the ponds and watershed lakes in the Flint Hills of Kansas. They think I’m full of baloney.
They’d think twice about demeaning Flint Hills fishing if they’d seen the pictures one of my neighbors has on his cell phone. Some members of his family recently fished a small pond on his place and landed three bass that weighted around 8-pounds each. They were huge, healthy bass.
The best part of this fishing story is that they released all three monster bass back into the pond for future recreational opportunities.
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I watched the Republican and Democrat primary election debates and will say I think all the candidates did more than their fair share to contribute to global warming from the hot air they put into the atmosphere.
However, here’s a little partisan item my neighbor Harley Ryder told me that I can’t resist retelling. Harley told me that a CNN poll of Democrats who watched the debates found that two out of three were as delusional as the other one.
Now, if you don’t like that item like it wuz told to me, just reverse the politics when you retell it to your friends.
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In the fall and winter I often wear some item of clothing that is camouflage. The other morning it wuz chilly enuf that I put on a camo jacket and cap and went to the local farm store.
First thing after I entered the building someone bumped into me. It wuz a neighbor who said, “Excuse me. I didn’t see you were wearing camo today. At least you know it’s working for you.”
What could be wiser words to end this column? Have a good ‘un.
