Week Five, or It Six?

I posted these pictures already on Facebook, but if you haven't seen them, here's week 5-6ish in our corn growth journal.

Joe is not super happy with the location in which I took these pictures, but beggars cannot be choosers, and at that time, Jack was not cooperating (thus the mode of transportation shown here, ahem...bribery), Anna was no where to be found, only to be found snitching a brownie before dinner, and the two middle girls just wanted to pose...and not nicely, semi-trashy, diva poses.

Just a typical American farm family, right?

Anyway, I decided to take a trip down memory lane this morning, and checked out my post from last year, just about on this date. My post's title was Water Conservation.

And I laughed out loud.

WATER CONSERVATION???

Oh what a difference a year makes.

While our corn is looking good: a nice rich green, lush and dense, we are also livestock farmers. While the college teacher/grain farmer's daughter in me still thinks summers are for swimming and vacations and relaxation as we watch the crops just grow, the livestock farmer's wife in me is SCREAMING for a dry stretch. We have hay that needs to be, well, everythinged...mowed, baled, raked, dried (not necessarily in that order). The end of June/early July should be a time when this is happening, and has already happened once before. Holidays in the summertime are generally marked with hay baling activities, not barbeques and pool parties, when you are a livestock farmer. The fourth of July is a good indicator of the "cuttings" of hay.

And we have hardly done any...sans the big chopping day, and some well timed (in between rain showers) baling on Joe's part this past week.

Our harried looks about hay are not just because of the weather, but because we are actually headed out of town...out of STATE (I know...take a deep breath for me) for a trip next week. We are trying not to focus upon the not-dones, but the fun that we will be having. I know that it's hard to step away from projects unfinished...thus my tendency to never sit down at night until all dishes/toys/laundry are put away.

I get that.

However, in this situation...HAY IS FOR HORSES!! We have a plane to catch!!

The good news is, we have a dry day today. We had no rain last night. It's humid and dewy, but with some breeze and sun, we should at least be on the right track.

If not, we have a lovely neighbor who I'm sure has a spare afternoon, between his own chores, kids, and cattle, who could help us out as we soak up sun, right?

Right.