Field notes from a Missouri farm
Three and eight-tenths inches in nine days. The gauge by the machine shed caught most of it on the twenty-eighth, when it set down two inches by itself. Grass greened up along the fence rows inside of a week. I wrote the numbers down before supper, the same as always.
See the rain logI take the level off the same post the first and last day of every month. August was the worst of it. The pipe still runs clear, and the stock water is fine, but the mud flat on the north end is cracked open the width of the mailbox. Full entry has the month-by-month numbers.
Read the full entryWorked the north line along the road three days running, morning only, while it was cool. The cedar posts I set in 2019 are holding. The wire between the corner and the gate is original to my grandfather and it shows. The entry keeps the count by run.
Read the full entryCut Tuesday, turned Thursday, baled Saturday morning before the dew burned off. Sixty-one bales off the river-bottom piece, which is more than I expected after the dry July. The whole sequence and the bale count are in the entry.
Read the full entryThe county dropped two loads at the crossing like we agreed in March. I spread them myself with the box blade. The culvert under it is flowing clean after the rod work last spring. Road notes are kept with the boundary records.
See the road and boundary recordsThat is the whole entry as it stands in the notebook. A dry month does not give a man much to say, and I do not pad the pages. The log keeps the number whether the month was interesting or not.
Why some entries run short
The grass held on longer than it should have, then let go all at once in August. September has been putting it back.