Hello friends!
So first of all, look at this super cool video my dad took! I’ve never been this close to an aerial applicator doing their job, it actually spooked me the first time they went past and I decided to stop and wait for the next pass so we could get a cool video (don’t worry, i was the only one on my aunt and uncles mile long driveway so I wasn’t being unsafe). Only thing I would have done differently? Slow rolled as they went by so I could maybe stay with them just a little longer, you can probably tell I put my foot in it a little trying to keep up but for obvious physics reasons there’s no way that was ever going to happen. It was really cool to see it that close in any case.
Why did I refer to them as aerial applicators and not the more traditional “crop dusters”? Well, many reasons. One is, I’ve been told by a couple pilots they prefer aerial applicators, and two, they don’t really dust crops anymore, they more “mist” them, the mixtures are, in general, significantly different than even a few years ago so dust rarely comes into play anymore.
That said, I’m totally guilty of coding switching here, depending on who I’m talking to I’ll still use crop duster, because when your 90+ year old dining companion refers to them as “crop dusters” it’s generally not worth it to correct them, and might come off disrespectful. So, if you hang out with me for a while, you may hear both. I’m guilty of that with a few things.
Especially because I live in a very old community generally.
(To clarify, this does not apply to rights issues and the like, I still correct all the “-isms”, I don’t entertain racism, ableism, misogyny, homophobia, etc regardless of who I might offend in the room, because if I offend you, I probably don’t care to be your friend anyway. In the same vein, if you feel the need to discriminate, you can feel free to close this blog out as well, we don’t put up with nastiness here, thank you.)
We’ve had the weirdest weather here. I live in the high desert, right, so it’s, generally speaking, dry here. Dry is nice because at 110° that’s the difference between “it’s far too hot to be outside” and “it’s far too hot to exist”. Humidity is a game changer. We recently had a string of four days of over 80% humidity. This is way too sticky even when you live in a humid place. The girls got a few days off to help manage,since it can be dangerous to work in conditions of heat and humidity that you aren’t used to. It also stormed a lot which makes sense when you consider the humidity most likely came from that monsoonal moisture coming up from the southwest. This time of year they have to deal with lots of flash flooding and storms as well. I’m very grateful we haven’t seen a lot of flooding around here but some places in the southwest got obliterated.
We mostly just tried not to melt. Everything was damp and sticky, and it’s amazing how quickly some fungi and molds and things pop up after a few days of 80+ humidity. Even my old dead wood pile had little green patches. We had little white mushrooms pop up in the yard and several of my plants just sorta wilted under the dampness. Desert plants aren’t humidity proof. It was also weird because the grass and pasture was all weighed down so no mowing or trimming could be done effectively, the bugs were really bad, and all the the normal characters, like the field workers next door, the early morning joggers, and even the delivery guys were all absent or nearly absent trying to avoid working in the 100° weather with 80% humidity. I totally get it, no judgment here, I was also hiding out, but it was slightly eerie.
Not much else has happened around here. We’ve been slowing down in the garden, something ate my last two kohlrabi before they came ready, but we’ve gotten lots of potatoes. The dogs tried a new groomer out and I think we like her, I just hope she lasts a while. We’ve had a string of bad luck in the area, groomers come and go with alarming speed. There must not be a lot of business here. So fingers crossed this one works out.
Until we chat again my friends.
The Farmer's Blogger 