Looking back over my posts, I detect a complaining tone – about how weather has a negative impact on our crops. But hey, that is only half of the story: after all, weather is also responsible for us having any kind of crop. Further, I like to be appreciative of good times. This is one of those times.
The heading of this post indicates “Another…”. I am referring to the fact that we had a wonderful fall last year. I reported rather dismal crop yields last year – BUT at least we had a crop; in large part due to having warm fall weather, that allowed the crops to mature – at least enough for a decent harvest.
This year we had another challenging spring; due to wet weather, we could not get our crops planted in a timely manner. So the crops were late and I wondered if they would mature (mostly the sorghum) before frost. I could not help projecting: we had a great fall last year – could it happen again this year, 2 years in a row?. Then, we had drought conditions in August: it stunted the beans and put the sorghum crop on hold (delaying maturing). However, we are now having another great fall – unseasonably warm weather. We are harvesting the sorghum before it is fully mature because it is very labor intensive: we now have a lot of visitor help as well as labor exchangers from our sister communities – Twin Oaks & Acorn in Virginia and East Wind in southern Missouri (and because we are already at the average date of the first killing frost).
At this time, we are about half way through the sorghum harvest (2 weeks into it), but I can tell already that we will have an “average” harvest – due to deliciously warm fall weather.
Thank you Gaia, nature spirits, & the Mysterious Ones for two consecutive glorious autumns!
