My southern Illinois friend and fellow farmwife, Jamilyn, commented on Facebook this morning that we may be looking at a short winter. I couldn’t agree more. She summarized well the thoughts that keep running across my mind as we watch and wait for this corn crop to mature and dry.

Here we sit, the first week of October, with nothing remotely ready to harvest in our corner of western Illinois. Some pockets of southern Illinois have been running for a couple weeks, while further north, a few farmers are just now venturing into the early fields. We weren’t able to plant until the third week of May, and most of it went in during the last week of May. And the corn outside my window today is still mostly green.

It’s an odd feeling, not having a combine running on the First of October. And yet, in a year when we thought we’d never get to plant and then thought we might not get to spray before our chemicals were off-label for the corn size, I guess we should be used to it.

Normally, I block off our family calendar for September, October and the first half of November. Now I find myself extending that through what, Christmas? Who knows what this weather is going to do? But for a family that’s used to settling into the warm comforts of home and regaining a post-harvest normalcy (i.e., Dad’s home!) by mid-November, that’s a little depressing. 

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