Sunflowers draw attention in southwestern Minnesota

Hello! The Feikema family is back from our road trip out west!

We had a great time exploring Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. In our rented RV we had 2,500 miles worth of family bonding, memories and beautiful scenery. If any of you have spent quite a while in close quarters (less than 250 square feet) with your family members, you can appreciate it when I say that we are glad to have returned with our marriage and our mental health (mostly) in-tact.

We learned that our oldest daughter thought that goats laid eggs. (Random blonde moment question from her.) And our youngest, very stoic daughter cries when reading a novel. We all knew that dad/husband hated being around crowds, but after “Disneyland for outdoor folks,” it is definitely confirmed. He is much happier off-roading in the RV (yes, the paved, road-less-traveled became a gravel and dirt road – for 38 miles).

We stayed at beautiful Harvest Host farm sites along the way – a goat farm, a rodeo-ranch, and a small hay farm in Wyoming, a local watering hole in Idaho, two farms in Montana, and a finally a ranch in Wyoming again on our way home. It was great to see how farming is unique in different parts of the country. We are also grateful for our family members and employees back home who took care of things for us.

While we were gone, we received about 2 inches of rain and thankfully avoided the strong winds and hail that other areas were hit with. Our hearts go out to those who sustained damage. We have had plenty of water for the entire growing season, so now we hope to ride out the rest with minimal disease and insect pressure.

Cutting hay and baling is ongoing in between rain showers. It has been a bit of a challenge getting it dry with all of the humid weather. The humidity has also slowed the small grain harvest. We were able to start with one variety of oats, but it takes waiting until late in the day and then only having a couple of hours to combine before the dew sets in. The rye and triticale are not far behind if we get some dryer weather.

We are also working on applying fungicide to the corn and soybeans using ground rigs, airplanes and drones. We are trying them all, both in an attempt to get it all done in a timely fashion and to see if one method or the other works better. The wet and humid weather is perfect for the fungi, so hopefully this application will prevent that.

The sunflowers are starting to bloom, and they are beautiful! A whole field of them definitely makes a statement. Since it is fairly uncommon in our area, we have been fielding many calls and texts wondering about it. They are quite tall, so hopefully they don’t have any lodging problems down the road. We also sprayed these with fungicide and are scouting for insects.

Next week, I’ll be heading east on a 1,000-mile road trip to Virginia to bring our daughter to college, so I’m looking forward to seeing the farms in the other direction. No RV and farm stays for us this time – just her little Malibu packed full of all of her worldly possessions and big dreams – but an adventure all the same.