Underground Dangers

Aside from our animal friends digging their homes underground, we have discovered that there are other dangers in the soil that we need to watch for.

One is bees.  Some bees like to make their nests, like this one, underground.  So when we're turning the soil over we need to watch for them or else risk getting stung!

The other danger is glass!  The Kernel said that at one time the area where we live was a campground later turned into a summer cottage retreat for people living in New York City. (Since then the area has become a year-round residental area.)  He reports that they didn't have garbage pick-up back then so most people would burn what they could and toss the rest onto their property that they weren't using.  He would know as he has lived in the area nearly all his life. 

And he is right.  We've been finding lots of glass bits, and roofing tiles too.  Even bits of old plumbing.  It's sad that the people who lived in this area before us didn't take better care of their land.

Corn update:  we now have 20 of the 26 varieties planted.  Pop said he's going to look into getting Mom's old hand tiller working.  We're crossing our fingers that he can as it will save us a lot of hard work.  All the rain we have been experiencing has hardened the soil again.

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Making Progress

We received a lot of rain on Saturday night.  The thunder and lightening was very scary.  We discovered yesterday that lightening hit a nearby tree and one of our neighbor's homes.

All that heavy rain also pounded all that land the Kernel had tilled for us.  This made it harder to get the next batches of corn planted.  But we did it!  We planted the last of the 14 types we tried to pre-start weeks ago:  Squaw, Strawberry, Heirloom Indian, and Lady finger.

We are very thankful that our Pop wanted to celebrate Father's Day helping us in the corn field.  We also managed to play a little baseball.  That was fun!

The Kernel gave us some green fencing to use -- "Deer deterrents," he said. We're glad it's not something that could hurt the deer.

There is another storm on it's way for tonight. We can already hear the thunder in the distance. And more rain is forcasted for tomorrow.  We hope to beat the rain and get another four types of corn planted ASAP.  But first we need to count all the seeds

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Making Cents of it All

Today is Father's Day.  Our Pop likes to follow the stock market and Futures, so we were challenged today to figure out, if we were real corn farmers, what our crop could be worth.

Based upon the article here, because of the heavy rain in the midwest, where most of the corn crops are grown, they think that the price per bushel could go over $8.00. 

Futures are anticipated prices for commodities.  Commodities are products grown from the earth like wheat, orange juice, and corn.

A bushel is an agreed amount of weight for a given crop like wheat, or in our case, corn.  If the corn still has the ear on, then the agreed weight is 70 pounds.  If the corn has been shelled, then the agreed weight is 50 pounds.

In the 1930's, a corn farmer could grow as much as 1.6 bushels of corn per acre.  In the 1990's the same farmer could grow as much as 141.8 bushels of corn per acre. The state of Iowa reports that they can get 200 bushels of corn per acre.

We crunched our numbers.  In the 1930's, the farmer would have earned $12.80 per acre.  That was a lot of money back then.  But if that farmer was able to get the 141.8 bushels per acre, the earnings would rise to $1,191.20.  And if that farmer was in Iowa, then it would be even higher, at $1,600.00! 

Our goal was to use 1/4 of an acre.  We are using less land due to the Kernel's tiller breaking.  To help make our math easier we decided to use that measurement.  If we were real corn farmers, back in the 1930's, then our crop could be worth $3.20.  If we use the 1990's 141.8 bushels number, then our crop could be worth $297.80.  And if we lived in Iowa (instead of Connecticut), then our crop could be worth $400.00.

Pop said not to bank on it.  One, he said we have nearly spent that amount on seeds, bugs, mulch, and marigolds.  Two, the weather, as we are learning, plays a big part in how the crop will do.  He suggests we keep an eye on the Futures, the value could go up if the midwest continues to have too much rain.  Or it could go down if they are able to salvage their crops and increase production, with some reports stating they could go as high as 300 bushels per acre.

Lessons in the Dirt

The picture we showed yesterday was not of footprints belonging to deer.  We're sorry for the confusion.  Based on the information in this website, Environmental Education for Kids:

If the track has five toes each on the front and back feet it's from a raccoon or a member of the weasel family (weasel, badger, mink, skunk, otter) or it's a bear, beaver, opossum.

We studied the picture of yesterday's footprint and think it belongs to ... racoons!  Oh no!  Do racoons like corn too?

We took this picture (on the left) earlier today.  This is the print the Kernel saw yesterday:

We agree.  Deer have hooves, not claws.  The Kernel said this print belonged to the Buck -- the daddy deer.

Prior to the big storm we are experiencing at the moment we were all out working in the corn field.  Before we knew it the wind picked up, the sky started crackling and we were running for cover!  It's amazing how quickly a storm can come up on you when you are so busy working with the soil.  At least the storm will save us from having to water everything by bucket again! 

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Oh deer!

We just finished planting four more varieties of corn: Broom (regular), Truckers Favorite White, Truckers Favorite Yellow, and Stowell's Evergreen.  That makes nine planted of the original 14 that take more than 100 days to harvest.  In looking at the calendar, that would make these ready somewhere around September 21st.   We hope the summer will hang around that long!

We also decided to measure some of the corn that is doing quite well.  The tallest is Bloody Butcher, measuring at 10 inches tall.  This means it doubled it's height since we transplanted it last weekend! 

Since we haven't installed some sort of system to water the corn yet, we watered it all by hand, with a bucket.  We did pretty good until some water spilled on us, and spilled some more and some more.  Soon we found ourselves very wet and muddy.  Mom had to hose us down and boy was that water ca-ca-ca-cold!! 

The Kernel stopped by just a little bit ago and took a look at the tracks we found around our corn field.  Not good.   "Deer," he said, "by the looks of it a baby, it's mother and a buck too."  The Kernel said he would be back tomorrow with something to help keep them away.  We're not sure what that will be.

This means we have wood chucks, rabbits, and now deer to keep a watchful eye out for.  We wonder what real farmers do to keep these animals away from their crops.  We have more research to do!

 

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Not digging all the results

Yesterday, since the four-day heat wave broke, we managed to prepare planting another type of corn before having to go to a meeting at our school last night.  Today, after school, we were able to spend more time in our corn field, managing to plant -- or really transplant -- three more types of corn: Hickory King, Maize, and Bloom (Multi-color).  We decided to plant these because they had the most sprouts.

This means we have officially planted five of the 14 varieties that take more than 100 days to grow.  Plus we still need to plant all the other varieties that take much less time to grow!  We sure do have a lot more work to do!  No wonder the reason kids were given the summer off to work in the fields!

We are disappointed that many of the varieties we pre-started nearly four weeks ago (May 25th) have of yet to sprout.  Why is that?  We don't think it is a container versus a starter kit issue because both had big failures.  So we're wondering if it is weather related.  Did that frost warning we had a few weeks back damage some of the seeds?  We're not sure.  Stowell's Evergreen, which we reported as the first to show good sprouting signs had sputtered out.  We had a frost warning that night.  We will need to restart Stowell's Evergreen by seed, directly in the ground. 

We sent an email to a local corn grower asking if we can visit their farm and ask questions about growing corn.  If they agree, we plan on asking what they think could have been the problem.  Mom said she heard they sold their farm so a shopping store could be built there.  We hope not!

And, our other problem is back, eating our superheros -- the Marigolds that we are planting to help ward off rabbits.  Is our wood chuck back, dining on our flowers?  Or could it be deer?  We're going to call the Kernel and see if he can tell who, or really what has been munching on our flowers.

Chiming in with some Changes

We had an unexpected storm yesterday afternoon, quite large, that prevented us from going out and planting more corn.  Today will be a scorcher, and our area schools have decided to give us early dismissal.  The weather forecast says we'll be feeling 100 degrees until around 7:00 pm tonight.  Since we have school tomorrow, planting after 7:00 pm will not be an option.  We wonder how the colonist were able to plant their crops when they first came to America.  They didn't get to wear shorts and T-shirts like we do today; they wore clothing mostly made of wool! 

We did make two changes to our blog.  One is the font size.  Pop was squinting when he read our entries, so we thought our readers might be doing the same.  So we made the font size bigger.  Second, our Mom spoke with some of our regular readers yesterday.  They said they'd like to leave us comments of encouragement here.  So she thought about it and said we could turn the comments option on.  She said if there's any comments that are inappropriate she will turn them back off.  We would like to hear from you, so please leave your comments with a "G" rating.

Mom said after school today we might go shopping for more deer deterrents to use around our corn field ... wind chimes!  The thought of breezes moving them is very cooling!