Temperatures warmed up this week, after below 0 a night or two last weekend and we received about ½ in of rainfall. Our snow is gone except for a few large piles in parking lots and some windrows along the edge of the highways. Forecast for the next two weeks call for much above normal temperatures and a record high for Christmas day of 68F.
Most area river elevators were closed , at least for part of the week because they did not have barges. I am not sure what the problem was, in Beardstown they had all kinds of full barges but no empties. Grain markets inched higher this week, but from what I hear not much is being bought and producers would like to see markets rebound so they can continue selling. Pictures this week are of 2 cereal rye cover crop fields in corn stalks, wheat on a sandy field and three pictures of family Christmas at our house. Next week we hope to get back to bull dozing, we had a tile contractor install several thousand feet of tile and risers on a hill farm that we will build terraces and dry dams on to control erosion and keep the dirt on the farm. I hope all is well and you have a productive week ahead.
It is cold this morning as I write this, -4F with a single digit high forecast! This will be short lived though as we have a forecast high of 50F on Thursday with rain before temperatures drop yet again. We had 3 inches of snow on Thursday and another 5 inches on Saturday along with slick roads. Grain markets dropped like our temperatures this week with both corn and beans losing value. Some advisory services believe it could be February or March before we see much upward price movement. I talked last week about no lines at the local elevators, well that changed this week, and I noticed lines every day. Sometimes there were trucks lined up on the highway.
Our news reported a large earthquake in Japan, I hope it did not cause too much damage?
We were able to get some ditch bank mowing done this week between snows and hope to get some done tomorrow before it gets sloppy later in the week as temperatures rise.
Christmas is just around the corner, and everyone is busy shopping and wrapping gifts. We plan to have our Christmas a little early this year for our family at our house and a big Christmas a few days after Christmas at the cabin for extended family.
Pictures this week are of snow around our house.
I hope all is well and you have a productive week,