Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Frigid!

We nearly broke some long time low temperature records for southwest Ohio last night.  It was 12 when I got up this morning and I don't remember it ever being this cold on November 18.  In a month it will be my birthday and most years it is near this cold this early!  The wind blew the wind chill below zero.

I have to admit the snow was pretty yesterday and the road was clean to Blanchester until the wind started blowing and blew snow everywhere.  It felt more like January in Ohio.

I feel for those guys who don't have their crop out because it s NO fun trying to harvest with these kinds of weather challenges!  There are still a lot of corn acres not harvested in Ohio and other states and still soybeans out, too.  I remember shelling corn in January around 1996 and trying to cut beans in the early 2000's.  I even had double crops out until almost February a few years ago so sometimes it just happens, no matter how well we planned at planting time.

The main talk I hear is how in the world are we going to turn a profit next year?  One friend said the suppliers are worried that farmers won't be buying near as many inputs next year.  We can't, they just don't pencil out.  How do we raise a profitable crop on a shoestring budget?  That is what all my discussions are about at this time.

I am thinking if we have five more months of this I am not sure I even want to try to farm.  I am set up to grow a good crop on the cheap next year but winter weather is not high on our agenda at this stage in our life.

We don't have enough money to go away all winter like the snowbirds do and would have to make some major adjustments to live the kind of life we would really like to live.  Scottsdale was beautiful last January, even though we were there for the wrong reason, the care of LuAnn's brother.

We are going to have to figure out our priorities and figure out how to get there.

Just like trying to pencil a profit next year.

Ed Winkle

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