We often talk about the fact that no two years are ever the same. This summer on our farm was no exception.

The growing season started with average temperatures and some rain, but as the second half of June came, so did the heat. Sheilah and I asked each other many times, "Was it this hot when we were kids?" It seemed like we didn’t remember the answer to that question.

But it wasn’t just the heat that was the problem. The lack of rain and the constant breeze sure dried things out in a hurry. The older and wiser farmers I talked to kept referring to the drought of 1988. The driest and hottest summer that I could remember was 2012, the year we got married.

We did take advantage of some of the dry weather, though. It was great for harvesting wheat and being able to bale all the straw.

Even unloading wagons in the early morning or late evening didn’t give us much of an escape from the heat. It seemed like it never got cool. The crops would turn blue and white during the day, only to soften to a light green color by nightfall.

It was hard to look at every day, but every day we would say that little prayer for rain. The grass in the yard finally dried up, and before you knew it, it was a solid five weeks of no mowing.

We get our local news from the Pittsburgh TV stations, and they kept track of days that temperatures were in the 90s. I think they were up to 17 of those this summer.

While I know we didn’t have more than that at our farm, our average daily temperature was over 90 degrees F during the four-week period of June 20 to July 18. We did get a little bit of rain during that time — 1.1 inches to be exact. We were thankful for what we received.

During the growing season, I talked daily to a few neighbors about how our crops were doing, and usually weekly to a few farmer friends of mine scattered across the state. We watched the radar and oftentimes sent text messages to each other. Sometimes those messages just had a “.1” in them, for a tenth of an inch of rain. One message read, “Fell apart and went around us.” 

The theme that we have learned from all this is that it seems we have a lot of microclimates scattered everywhere. When the forecast calls for rain, we all seem to watch the storms fall apart. It sure was discouraging!

The first part of July, we mowed down our first two plantings of sweet corn. It had tasseled during the heat with no rain, and never made an ear.

Then, the third week of July came around, and we finally got a couple showers — just in time for us to host the Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance summer field day. Things started to green up, and I realized that we would have a crop. Not a great crop by any means, but we would have a crop.

Since then, we seemed to have had rain the rest of summer. Things are green now, and before long, harvest will be here.

Soon we will find out how good those seed genetics really are.

Mike and Sheilah Reskovac and their sons farm near Uniontown, Pa. Check out all of their "Two Hearts, One Harvest" blogs.