We are a week away from the beginning of our planting window, yet there isn’t much ‘farming’ going on. We have been cold and wet. Good news, the forecast is changing! It’s going to be warm and wet next week!

Usually by now, there would have been a break in the weather to get some spring tillage done. That has not happened this year. We usually do strip till in the spring, but I don’t think this is going to be a year that we will get to do much stripping. That is a disappointment as making strips is the most economical way to get some tillage done. It also speeds up planting by reducing manpower and equipment necessary to plant the field.

Seed and supplies continue to trickle in. I’ll feel better when the rest of our soybeans show up next week. They have been given a tentative delivery date of April 14! In a normal year, that would be cutting it too close. We did go ahead and make provisions in case some of the long-promised seed never shows up. (But don’t try to buy any extra nitrogen, it’s just crazy money -- more than 4x last year’s price!)

Wheat top dressed

A local retailer did confirm that most guys were able to get their wheat top dressed. Ours was finally done last Tuesday morning while there was some frost in the ground. We were also able to spread the last of the manure from our storage building. We are glad to have those two items checked off the list!

It is too early to sound the alarm, but a couple of seed dealers I’ve talked to are aware it may be a late spring and are shifting normal excess inventory into earlier maturity corn seed. As hard as it has been to get products, I hope few changes are required this spring and summer.

Nevertheless, spring will eventually come. Crops will get planted and grow. There is nothing we can do to speed spring’s arrival. For the time being, we continue to find projects to work on. We are also able to take time to make sure we get to the kids sporting events before farming takes over.