By Kim Baldwin, McPherson County farmer and rancher
The heat of the summer has officially moved in and with that the day-to-day summer routines become fairly predictable.
For my husband, that means waking up before the summer sun rises to begin the daily irrigation chores and coming home well past dark after completing the evening irrigation duties.
The irrigation responsibilities bookmark every day until it’s time to shut off the systems and allow the corn and soybeans to begin to dry down for harvest. It’s an everyday event for the rest of summer unless it rains enough to allow for a small reprieve from the daily watering tasks.
The spring and early summer presented us with many challenges this year. Abundant rains – while needed and appreciated – delayed our planting schedule or created situations requiring fields to be replanted. Because of the extended periods of rain we received in June, our wheat harvest and all additional work requiring heavy machines in fields was noticeably delayed. When the wheat harvest began, stories of trucks or combines getting stuck in the mud was a repeated thread heard over and over.
The usual cadence associated with wheat harvest was never achieved. There was never a hard push to get the grain out of the fields before the summer storms rolled in. Rarely did we experience the flow of finishing a field and knowing exactly which ripened field of wheat we’d move into next and work in late into the night. This year the wheat was dry and ready for harvest, but the ground was not.
The buzzing of crop dusters also increased during this time as many farmers in our area navigated needed management practices by keeping their spray rigs out of the soggy fields and relying on outsourcing applications from the sky.
The clock has also been ticking on getting any additional fall crops planted in the fields the wheat has come out of. Fields that farmers had preliminarily identified as potential double-crop acres may not see those crops later this fall.
Needless to say, it’s been an interesting summer.
A couple of Sundays ago, a member of our church family approached me before the service to check on us and to let me know that she was praying for the farmers. She recognized the challenges faced during this season and commented she didn’t know how we did what we did.
I told her farming isn’t for everyone, and then referenced a prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr I was introduced to many, many, many years ago that I rely on still to this day to help me navigate challenges and draw strength from.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
And so we go.
One day at a time this summer.
Doing what we can and accepting what we can’t.
It is my hope that we may all experience that serenity.
“Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.
