Last week was a nice change of pace with some good weather. A lot of first cutting of hay was baled. I don't think I have ever seen so much hay put up in a week. It looked like a good crop for first-cutting alfalfa. There are still a lot of guys planting beans. I would guess half the beans went in the ground last week. There are still a few fields that aren't planted. Some guys are actually hoping for a little light rain to break the crust on beans planted last week.
We finished planting our beans Sunday. We kind of mudded them in but it is still a good feeling to have them done. Now maybe we can look at re-planting some acres where we had ponding. I would like to get the first cutting of hay done but we need a good forecast before we try to cut that. Normally we do first cutting somewhere around Memorial Day.
It's too wet to get into the field right now. A couple of guys did a little spraying before the rain rolled in Thursday night (May 23). We're just doing some cattle work. Pretty soon a lot of guys may have some decisions to make about whether to replant in some fields.
We were able to get all but about a few days’ worth of soybeans done before the rain hit last week. We had about 3 inches of rain at our place over the weekend. No wheel will be turning for a few days even if it doesn't rain more. We're doing livestock work right now instead.
We really only got about six-tenths of an inch of rain last week, but we didn't get any real drying weather. It was cold and cloudy and damp all week. We didn't get anything done in the field the last half of the week.
It took forever for fields to dry last week. We were able to start planting again on Saturday afternoon. Right now it is slow going. We are working between showers. The rainfall totals haven't been large but there also hasn't been enough heat to help dry things out.
A lot of corn got planted last week and even some beans. We finished corn planting on our farm and got one field of beans in the ground. Then we had about 1.4 inches of rain over the weekend and there is more in the forecast. Right now what we probably need the most is a little bit of heat to make things grow.
We are planting corn today (Monday). I think just about everybody around here got rolling this past week. I got all my commercial anhydrous application work done. Right now field conditions are good. There is good soil moisture but not so much that it is stopping us from going.
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Pease farms near Colfax with his father. They have about 1,000 acres, most of which is in corn and soybeans. They also have a small cow-calf operation.