What do you see when you look in the mirror? Maybe what you've been. Hopefully what you wish to become. Or do you see what you think others think of you? I have learned that worrying about what others think distracts me from who God made me to be. Are you living to your potential?
Once we know what our strengths and weaknesses are, many times our potential lies in what we enjoy. Friday evening Jan and I went to Pella to watch Jackson play teeball. Jackson belongs to Kurt and Emily and is the one in the yellow tennis shoes. Once after a game that Jackson had not tried particularly hard on Emily asked him why he wasn't engaged in the game. He said,"Mom, I'm just not a ball player. I'm a motorcycle rider." :)
As many of you already know Jan has our smaller grandkids on Mondays. Well I always enjoy working with the little older ones. So last Monday Ezra, Elijah, Zach, and I loaded up the Ranger and headed for a field near the Lacey Blacktop to pick up rocks on an old building site before the replant corn on that farm got too big. As adults we have the ability to build up or tear down other's potential by the words we use. When negative words creep into our conversations. When we talk bad about others. When we criticize, condemn, and complain, we diminish and limit folks. However when we praise, affirm, encourage, and inspire those we work around, we are having a positive impact on their potential.
Practice is a big part of reaching one's potential. Gideon and his team won second place at the State Skeet Shooting tournament in Waukee. Gideon shot a 74 of 75 possible birds. Maclane, to Gideon's right, shot a 125 out of 125. Congratulations guys. Thanks for the picture BJ.
It's been a hog week for Andy, our helper. He has spent much of the last two weeks sorting, selling, and powerwashing. Thanks for the picture Andy. Andy's hog shed holds around 2400 head of hogs. This was Andy's first turn in he and Amara's new building near Deep River called 2 AM Pork. Karl also is getting ready to start selling hogs. He, Kurt, Alex, and Kasey did the first sort for 3 semi loads going out on Monday morning. Karl and Kristin's site takes around 30 semi loads of fat hogs weighing close to 300# to empty.
BJ has been busy mowing and baling. This is the time of year when he mows grass field borders, waterways, and small fields around ponds, etc. for us and others.
I was able to get away a couple of hours and attend a field day where new products for the 2020 crop was being introduced. The seed industry continues to make great strides in genetics, traits, technology, and seed treatments that keep our crop going in a year like the one we're experiencing this year.
So what's our current crop potential for harvest? That's a good question. It's obviously improving. Other than some river bottoms we now have dark green corn. Green corn means the plants have finally found either the first nitrogen or the added nitrogen applied. Our fields still have variable height. Yellow corn doesn't grow. You never want a corn crop to have a bad day and this year's crop has had bad weeks. If you see yellow or different shades of green from now till fair time there is not much you can do about it. Thanks for the picture Alex. And also the comment about feeling blessed.
The markets follow the USDA crop reports and the government certainly thinks the crop is improving. I enjoy following the 52 week Dec/19, (meaning new crop) corn market chart. In mid May new crop corn hit a 2 year low. 4 weeks later it rose $1.10/bu. to a 4 year high. It's been slowly slipping since until Friday when it dropped an additional .20 after the USDA report. It's currently down .40 from it's high.
Soybeans are much more forgiving than corn at adapting and overall look pretty good other than being behind in height. A soybean plant starts reproduction based on day length. If you look at these short soybeans you will see they are already flowering because it has sensed our daylight hours are already getting shorter. That is why we advise and add population to later planted soybeans. The little guy in the picture below is a thistle caterpillar. It usually feeds on thistles and other plants but has been eating soybeans lately. This guy turns into an orange butterfly that looks like a monarch but is smaller. Thanks for the picture Karl. He found these while spraying second pass soybeans.
We two pass all our corn fields for weeds except the difficult ones. One pass herbicides on corn aren't working very well this year because of mucho rain and lack of canopy.
Below Karl is respraying a field for a customer. It's a tough call whether or not to respray. A person doesn't like weeds however spraying canopied corn has limited success.
As weather permits Alex is still busy adding nitrogen to this corn crop for others. Below Pablo is tendering him. Tendering means he is bringing him product from the fertilizer tower in New Sharon where Kathy loads him to the field.
Thursday evening Pella had Ag in the square. Farm Bureau was sponsoring a tall corn contest. This early planted dark green corn is growing around 4 inches a day. Jackson and Jayden took 1st and 2nd place.
Talking about crop potential, we never know what's coming. Most folks my age remember the June 28 storms way back when. Friday morning the sun was shining and we all had our jobs dry spreading, respraying corn, 2nd pass soybean spraying, and haying. Jan said to the hired help, "It's June 28. We might get storms today." Yeah, right. Well about mid morning Mike from CPS started texting us asking us to watch the radar. A bank of clouds from the northeast came in backwards and dumped 2 inches of rain unexpectedly plus strong winds and some hail.
Of course the tallest corn took it the worst leaning over and greensnapping. Leaning corn will recover with just maybe a small gooseneck in it's lower stalk. Greensnapping however is more critical killing the plant. Greensnap happens to fast growing corn that becomes brittle during fast growth spurts. The most affected wind vulnerable areas greensnapped around 10% of the plants. We also have hail damage around the Lacey blacktop area. Some say farming is a gamble. I think farming teaches us a dependency letting us know we are not in charge. However it's reassuring to know the One that is and to know that He created us with potential.
So what's our countries potential? The 4th of July is Thursday when we celebrate our countries birthday. We are also hearing from folks who want to be President of this great country. Most of them are criticizing our current President, trashing capitalism, and promising socialism. We are a democracy. It take morals and values to keep a democracy going. I think Britain and England are monarchies. It takes honor to keep a monarchy going. Socialism doesn't work. When everyone rides in the wagon, there is no one left to push the wagon. Socialism takes fear to keep going. Thanks for the office conversation the other morning Mark.
There is not a better place to live than in the heartland of this great country in small town rural Iowa where we know and care about each other. Where our kids and grandkids still know how to be productive. Where we can live up to the potential we were created for. Where we can help others reach their potential. Thanks for the visits last evening cousin Al and Joyce, Dave and Dianne and Jim. Chris and Drew. Have a good week.
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