Well, what a year. I know that everyone laughs when farmers complain about the weather, but come on! This spring was so incredibly dry that we were seeding into dust. In some fields we had weeks and weeks of zero germination. What weeds were already in the ground took advantage of any spring moisture and started to grow. The crops never had a chance to germinate and outgrow the weeds so we had some pretty dirty crops. The summer again was terribly dry and we ended up plowing under several fields. What fields we left to mature did not produce well at all. The quality of the grain was very good...good levels of protein that help the bakers, but the yields were less than half of normal. Not good. Then we had some terrible storms this summer...winds at close to 100 km/h and hail. Then another wind storm this fall that blew the swaths all over the place. Now we are in the middle of october and it won't dry up enough to finish with the harvest. I have very little left to combine, but I do have hay laying in windrows that I need to get baled. I am not sure if we will be able to or not? I can see around our area that there are many farmers who are a lot worse off than I am. There are still thousands of acres of crops out in the field west of Edmonton.
I will be glad when 2009 is over from a farming perspective. Whatever 2010 has in store for us farmers, I can't see it being any worse.
