What happened again? Ten days after we had a thunderstorm drop six inches of rain on the village, we had morning thundershowers dump five inches of rain! This time the power was only out about eight hours.
Luckily Garry and the guys had gotten the heifer barn trusses all firmly anchored in place over the last two days. The steel for the roof is ordered but it will be vulnerable to high winds until it's on. When they started working on it Monday morning they discovered that the whole thing had shifted a foot due to the storm that we'd caught the edge of over the weekend. A few drops of rain and the wind blew hard for a couple minutes.
So they reinforced it and tied a rope on one side to the first heifer barn and the other side to a parked tractor, with the forecast calling for possible severe thunderstorms. The first couple storms came through after 12:30 am, more wind than rain. However, around six am it started to pour and at one point even hail, as the front moved through.
Unfortunately, the wheat harvest is only about two thirds finished. Yesterday there were two combines going but some days only one, and not all day. It's slow going as they try to pick up all the grain that has gone down and is almost flat on the ground. However, the good news is they're nearly finished with the fields that had a lot of wheat go down, although after today's rain the last thirty five hectares may not be standing as well as before. The really good news is there's lots of it, they think it's hundred bushel an acre for the best wheat crop we've grown. Max is really excited about it, even though he's had to work on fixing both combines to keep them running.
They're really going on baling straw, although it will be a few days before it dries out enough to bale more. The wet ground should work up easily when they're done baling, some years it's been so dry they can't plow it.
The sunflowers were starting to bloom when we got the last rain and after today's the heads are starting to hang down, they're getting heavy, especially on the fields that were planted first. Even the five hectare field that was planted after they baled some wheat is looking good and about to bloom. The bees are keeping busy in the sunflower fields. If you look closely you can see one on the sunflower below.
The corn ground was still wet on top before this rain, we really might not need to buy any more irrigation water this year. The alfalfa fields were already looking green before the rain. Third cut was big, as much as first cut, they filled ten wagons.
I walk past the smaller corn field on my morning walks with Bear, it's been in tassel for more than a week. It's been planted with shorter season corn for grain. I will admit that the dog and I did not go around the block this morning in the thunderstorm!
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