I made a little hay, and I’m just hoping for pretty good weather. If it rains, just light showers. You can’t expect to have perfect hay weather. In the area, there’s a lot done this past week. Unfortunately just south of us there were some rains again to keep them out of the fields. The crop that is up is looking better. We have a long ways to go. I know I had corn knee high last year — of course, that was an extreme year.

I’m waiting to cut some hay, but that will probably happen later this week. In the area, some planting started again on Saturday with more Sunday and Monday will be more yet. I grow 30 acres of oats to combine and I’m going to have a fungicide aerially applied to them. With the price of cash oats essentially the same as corn, there’s some value to protect. More sun and 80 degree days is what we need.

Not a lot of field activity — about as close to zero as you can get in our area. Since last Thursday (May 16) there has been 4½ inches of rain. A lot of corn is up, and it looks like it came up pretty good. Of course, it’s yellow — it needs sun and heat. Beans are coming up, and I think they are going to be OK, but they are much more forgiving than corn.

Not a lot of field activity — about as close to zero as you can get in our area. Since last Thursday (May 16) there has been 4½ inches of rain. A lot of corn is up, and it looks like it came up pretty good. Of course, it’s yellow — it needs sun and heat. Beans are coming up, and I think they are going to be OK, but they are much more forgiving than corn.

Considering the year, this week was pretty good. We’re finished, with one wet area that’s got to be done, but it’s a small area. A dairy farmer nearby chopped the first hay. Right now we need warm weather — there’s a lot of stuff to come up now. Beans are coming up, and I planted them when I started planting corn. That will be four weeks ago. I think they’ll be fine. They’ll be what they are — me looking at them 10 more times won’t help. With the heavy rain over the weekend, it’s pretty …

Not a lot to report. I planted Tuesday (May 7), but had less than a day because you couldn’t start until after dinner. Then we were hopeful for the weekend, but that turned out to be a bust with clouds and sprinkles. I’m planning on planting today (May 13) after dinner. I did hear there were guys planting east of Cedar Rapids this morning right away, and I think that means we are getting into the “lower your standards” mode. My first corn is up. I could row it driving by the other day. P…

Got a little bit of work done over the weekend, late Saturday and Sunday until we got rained out at 5 p.m. I was planting corn and my son was drilling soybeans. When we were going it felt pretty good. It’s so spotty for rain. We had 0.22 inches yesterday, a half mile south they had 0.6 inches. If we don’t get any rain Monday, I’m thinking of planting Tuesday after dinner maybe. 

I’ve got some corn planted and I’ve got some beans planted. There are some guys planting corn and there are some guys who haven’t started. It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. It sounds like after we get through (Tuesday) the heavy rain starts backing off. Hopefully next week is better. It’s a good maintenance week here.