Farming Fridays!

Growing up, one of the most frustrating things was having all of my school friends wishing and praying for a snow day in November and I was strictly forbidden from doing so. Because, naturally, we were always still in the middle of harvest. 

If I was still in school, this past week I would have gotten my secret wish. This was the forecast on Sunday night: 

It’s called lake effect snow. As the air travels over the lake, it picks up moisture from the lake. When the storm hits ground, it dumps all of that moisture back out on top of us. It happens a lot during the winter and, sometimes, occurs in the form of rain. But not usually this early.

And the early snow storm didn’t disappoint: 

No, that is not my car that is stuck in the middle of the road. I got stuck in the parking lot. Thankfully, there were some nice guys that helped push me out.

                                               

That was the scene down from my office a couple hours after it stopped snowing. The little table there hadn’t been touched yet, so it isn’t like we were making it up. 

Sunday night dad, mom, and my brother stayed out picking until about 2am. They just about got finished with soybeans. Thankfully, however, they were able to get back in the fields by Wednesday. Most of the snow is gone already, but as you can imagine the water isn’t. 

Muddy fields make things a little more difficult.

The fields are just a tad bit wet now. That makes it really hard to actually get things done. Not only does it make driving the combine through the fields difficult, the corn stalks are also wet. As the combine pulls the stalks through, they can get stuck inside the machine and clog it all up.

It’s also too wet for us to bring our trucks into the field. So we’re having to park on the road (another reason to watch out!). 

But that’s the thing about farming here in Michigan – the weather is crazy unpredictable and you just never know what’s going to happen!