Scout's Honor

We're used to hearing scouting reports from the Kansas City Chiefs training camp or yet another commentary on how K-State and other Big 12 schools will fare if and when OU and Texas actually depart our conference.

This fall crop scouting report may not have mass appeal. But it's rather important to a specific farmer.

We practically had to cut through the humidity with a knife, and both my camera and my glasses fogged up on our morning scouting expedition. But after wiping off both, I got the mission accomplished.

The milo is headed out and looking good. (True confessions: We ended up driving to the other side of the milo field after deeming one end ugly. On second thought, that's not very kind. How about this? It was not photogenic because of weeds.)

Milo has made a lot of progress since my last blog post about it. Back in a June 10 post, it looked like this:

It was just up and growing. 

The corn got a little earlier start. We began planting it April 26. 

 

By June 4, it looked like this:

 

 And this was yesterday morning, July 28:

The corn and milo right got an additional boost from the unexpected 1.60" of rain we received as we were leaving church last Sunday. However, the rainfall was spotty. North of town, we got 0.20". That's better than many people, who missed the scattered rainfall all together.

The ears are looking large and full.

The rainfall was especially beneficial since it's been so hot this week.

Since our dryland crop is dependent solely on Mother Nature, the rains have been particularly beneficial. Still, there's still some time between now and harvest. My husband is his usual optimistic self. I am more a "Don't count your chickens" proponent when it comes to corn.