Waiting

We are still waiting to begin harvest. After a cool, wet week with minimal drying we are hoping that maybe this will be the week. Last week would have been the ideal time to sow our winter wheat, but with no soybeans harvested yet, the wheat will be seeded late. We are starting to run short on feed corn, so we may have to start trucking some old corn home from the elevator if we don't get some new corn harvested and dried soon. We're not even sure if corn or soybeans will go first, so we can't even get the combine completely ready.
This will be the latest start to harvest of my career.

On another topic, last year we had a large fern overwinter in our bathtub. It moved out when daughter #1 got married. This week, a large Wandering Jew moved into the bathtub. It sure is a good thing we don't take baths at our house!

I spend a lot of time these days kicking walnuts. We have a white rock driveway with a large black walnut tree that hangs over it. It is a very prolific tree, and drops half of its nuts on our nice white driveway. When cars drive on it, the smashed hulls/nuts stain the drive black. So, to prevent the staining, I walk the drive several times a day and sweep, rake, but usually kick the walnuts off the drive and into the yard. I get made fun of a lot.

When I was a kid, we used to have to pick up the walnuts and dump them in a pile out back somewhere where the tractors would drive over them and de-hull them. Then we would pick up the nuts (still in their hard shells) and take them to my grandpa. He would spend his winters cracking the shells and picking out the meat. What a tedious job! But he enjoyed it, and some people actually like the taste of walnuts.

And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds:
Genesis 43:11