Harvest might just be here!  Finally!  A hot summer breeze and muddy fields, but we are going to attempt to get the wheat out of the field.  I am anxious for my kids.  I worry about the trucks on the road and the slow moving vehicles.  I worry about them overheating and not drinking enough water.  I worry about meals and getting them fed for the long night of cutting.  I worry.  I worry.  I am the worrier of the bunch and all of that worry can’t change anything.

This has been a harrowing year for all of us.  For farmers and businessmen alike, the Heartland has been a wading pool of trickle down depression.  Several years of drought rained out by the wettest Spring on record since 1993.  The water comes up from the ground in pools glistening across the prairie.  It is a welcome sight for the cattle standing in belly deep grass.  It is a sickening sight for farmers who watch their newly planted corn and bean fields standing under water.  The wheat fields are beginning to topple under the stress.  They are still ok as long as they can get the wheat out quickly before test weight suffers and quality drops.  It’s a non stop gamble.  It affects us each and every one whether you know it or not.  The headlines from Successful Farming read “Acreage Way Above Trade Expectations, Markets Fall USDA says.”  This is the news that none of us need to hear.  I don’t suppose anyone at the USDA or the Board of Trade has gone out to any farm to ask the farmer what he thinks.  I am sure than none of the profiteers from the Board of Trade care that the quality of the corn and the short season will impact the bushels and the revenue that the farmers will lose.  They sit in the city hedging their bets on  a market they could care less about.  Their “excesses” are the farmers loss. Too bad for the peons who are out their busting their hump to survive.

I was talking to a young friend of mine today who wondered why the farmers don’t “get together and not sell their grain for ten days all at once.  Wouldn’t that make the prices increase?”  He is so smart he thinks that we should develop an app that would give farmers the ability to plan ahead and work together to store each other’s crops and hold out until we received the kind of prices that our crops are worth.  I love the idea.  It reminded me of the farmers in the 80’s who drove to Washington to protest.  Drove their tractors I should say!  I believe that was the farmers version of an embargo and tarrifs.  How sad…here we are again.

Nevertheless….watch out for the slow movers on the road. Give them space and remember that they are stressed to the max.  They work late hours to provide for their families and for you.  Just some quick thoughts.

Until then….be well

(thank you Riley Sheppard for the drone pics!!)

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