About a month ago, I was all excited. Planters were rolling in the Mid-South and I could smell the soil. We had had several hot days in the Mid-South and I was ready to get to planting cotton. Like cotton farmers in the area, I knew it was still too early. But I saw strawberries up, some corn beginning to swirl and I was excited about spring. Now I’m a bit more exasperated than excited and can only imagine what it would be like if I have a crop riding on this weather.
To put it bluntly, this spring sucks. It sucks bigtime here anyway.
I’ve celebrated the planting progress in several areas, but here at home… well, here I’m worried. I was getting worried when friends had several feet of water rush over their farms. Seeing it first hand was unbelieveable and a post will be going up on the company blog soon detailing that. (Permanent link to the blog post added later.)
But over the weekend, I attended my niece’s college graduation (she totally rocks by the way). I bemoaned the heat a bit. Well into the 90s and walking around college campuses will tend to do that to a person. But maybe I lost perspective for a minute. Because Sunday evening as I landed back in Memphis and felt a chilly 60 degrees while the sun was up, I also restored my cotton legs and got worried. That’s too cool for us to get a cotton crop off to a good start.
And while the rain on the window sill is frequently a welcome sign for farmers, today I awoke to the sound with a sense of dread. Can we please catch a break? Judging from the view out my window, a lot of ground is sitting there (and some still seems to be underwater further from the flight path). Farmers are trying to consider lots of new factors and get crops in the ground here in West Tennessee. I’d appreciate a break. I promise to help some folks manage the complaints about the heat — I for one won’t complain again for a while. Can’t help but wonder if bad juju got in the way. For that, I apologize to the farmers here in my part of the world.