Ready, set, go!

This morning when got up, we found that it had rained again.  It looked pretty gray out, so I went out to pick my cucumbers in the garden. I got pretty wet, as it started raining as I got to the first cucumber row. My feet were a glob of sticky mud before I was done.  I wanted to make one more batch of pickles before teaching at SEI next week.

Garry was happy with the rain showers,

even though we had 4 tenths of an inch Tuesday, and another 2 tenths Wednesday night. He always says in Ukraine you can never have too much rain. However the rain has been kept the combine from working.  There is still a quarter of the wheat acres to harvest. It continues to be a great crop. They were finally able to get a truck  to sell wheat on Wednesday after the rain came. They loaded up a semi from the storage shed, and have been selling some  ever since. The first load graded #2 and was 10% moisture.  They were able to combine again on Friday,  and got more straw baled, after a  couple days off.

Max took advantage of the slightly wetter wheat harvested Friday and mixed it with the dry stuff to sell. There is no premium for dry  grain, so they are hoping to get closer to 14% moisture.  They need to sell wheat to pay for the water bill for irrigation, and other things. Thursday  afternoon Garry and Max went to look  at a new grain drill to buy.
Max is having some very late nights as the trucks are only allowed on the highway from ten pm to 10 am,  so he's loading them at night. He said he was just finished with one Friday around three am when it really poured.

If you're wondering if paying to put water on the corn I'd worth it, check out the photo below. I took it this evening after we watched Kolya Mazhara play soccer.  That's just Garry standing in the corn field. 

We also checked the third cut alfalfa,  they did not get as much on the irrigated alfalfa as they'd like,  because they had to get so much on the corn.

Here's the one that relies on the rain, you can see it's much shorter and thinner.  The weather forecast for next week is wet and cooler. Hopefully they are able to get the rest of the wheat off before quality drops too much.