Farming update

Spring is a crazy, busy time when you farm. We had thought that harvest time would be the hardest time of the year, but we are finding that spring is harder on our family than harvest is. I didn't realize just how much went into getting crops planted and started well. After completing his first year of farming with Grandpa, John was given the option to rent a field from his granpda and try his hand at farming on his own. He was excited for the opportunity. They rotate between soy and corn and this was the year for that particular field to grow soybeans. He was still working with his grandpa with the rest of the land. But for this field, he gets to make all the decisions. So whereas before he was more of a farm hand, he is now an official farmer and is farming 140 acres of beans.

It's been a rough first year. The Midwest had unusually high amounts of rainfall this spring. Many fields were not able to handle all the water and just couldn't drain well before the next round of heavy rain came through. There are many farmers who were never able to plant their fields this year and it is sad to see that land just sitting fallow. Unfortunately, John's field was one that had trouble with draining. Every time we get a heavy rain, he has two lakes and a river on his land. He did buy crop insurance this year and that mandates that your crops must be planted by June 15th. (Mid-June is really late to start your planting.) Many farmers had to plant late this year because they had to wait for the water to go down first. John didn't plant until June 13th. He had to plant in less than ideal conditions because he had to meet that planting deadline. He had a lot of plants that never popped up or got drowned, so he wound up replanting parts of his field. Things were going well for awhile after that and then it poured and poured again. The standing water killed several acres of his beans and there was not time to replant them again. (It's not his lack of experience causing any of this. This has happened to many around here.) But he does have beans that are alive and growing well. It does look like he will be making a claim on that crop insurance this year. That will not provide as much income as actually selling beans would have. We are praying that we at least break even but are unsure how everything is going to turn out financially. The price of soybeans is really low right now. Please keep this situation in your prayers.

Due to all the craziness caused by the weather, spring was really stressful. John was working 14 hour days, six days a week, for about six weeks straight and it was really hard on our family. That is why I said spring is worse than fall. We were very happy for the opportunity to take a family camping trip over the 4th of July weekend. We really needed the family time. (More about that trip later.) But one bright spot to John farming his own field is that he can incorporate the kids a little. The weeds have been killer this year, since they love all this extra rain and they had extra time to grow before planting started. John had already sprayed his weeds a couple times and was not crazy about the idea of doing that a third time. So John had the idea to hire the boys to come and pull weeds in his field. They jumped at the chance to earn some money and spent several hours weeding by hand this summer. It was good bonding time with dad. They are getting bigger, so they were actually helpful and made good progress. They all bought new Legos and Hot Wheels with their earnings. :)

Once things were growing well, life got to slow down for summer. For us, this means that instead of working until 9:30pm, John comes home by 6 (and sometimes just after 5) and he also gets Saturdays off again. We were all thankful to have more time with him again and were looking forward to our trip to Branson.

We are about to gear up for fall. John and the other guy who works for grandpa just took a week off from work. It is now time to start preparing things for harvesting. The crops are not all quite ready to be harvested yet, but there is plenty of prep work to be done before we get to that point. John is back to working Saturdays again now. I'll let you know how everything turns out with John's field.

Getting ready to plant his beans

I can pull weeds too, mama. Can I have some money??