Around here, the corn is coming down. Farmers are MOWING it. Yes, mowing. Knocking it down, scooping it up and using it for silage (animal food)– all of it going to ‘waste’ versus normal usage. There just was not any rain from May-late July. Fields were brown. At this point, letting them get soaked with fall rains is pointless. Better feed the animals and use your crop insurance than get about 1/3 harvest. Yup, 33%. Pathetic. Ears of field corn 3 inches long instead of 8″. Four foot tall sandy colored stalks instead of 6 ft tall lush green ones. So sad. But the corn coming out makes it seem like fall. That’s not all…
There’s fall decor going up in stores, people lighting bonfires, leaves are falling from the trees and yet…the last couple of days have been 80’s and after weeks of over 100 degrees (that’s Fahrenheit, around 39 Celsius) and the rumor is that the heat is going to keep up well into the true fall here (October or November). Will we have a fall or go straight from summer to winter? Hard to say. It was a warm winter last year, and I’d give up just about anything to have another warm winter. At least without ice. Snow if fine, but ice storms? Forget it.
Enjoy these cooler temps while they last, soak up the last of the kiddie pool, the butterflies flitting around, go outside, unplug, relax with a glass of tea, and just.. chill. Summer is still here.. for now.
That is so sad. I have such a long history of unfulfilled vegetable-growing dreams that almost any story, especially of professional growers, having to chuck a crop makes me sad…
We hardly had winter at all here last year. I think I put a jacket on once. Being in NORTH Florida, this is quite unusual, as we have milder versions of all four seasons (except summer.. summer is NOT mild). Enough so that we wear sweaters and jackets and sometimes hats and scarves as well. Not last year. I hope we get to wear them this year…