Cloudburst

Back on May 22nd Darryl got his small 1/2 acre field of open pollinated corn planted with his little two row planter.  He joked that he used it for his annual 20 minutes.  The corn is up and growing great—along with lots of weeds and grass. 



Although he has a two row cultivator for the John Deere MT he can’t use it because of a hydraulic problem, plus the time to take the sickle mower off and put on the cultivator would hardly be worth it.  I told Darryl I could go through the 16 rows of corn with the Troy Bilt tiller.  I began the process late Sunday afternoon and got through about 7 rows before quitting to do evening chores.  We got 3/10th of an inch of rain that night so the first chance I had to get back was Tuesday afternoon.  The soil was moist but not too wet to work.

I got started about 1:30 and after about an hour I noticed that it was becoming quite cloudy.  I kept tilling and looking up over the tree tops on the ridge at the clouds.  I wanted to finish before heading in with the tiller.  I began hearing some thunder over the noise of the tiller engine.  The clouds were looking quite dark and “mean.”  As I was on the last pass on the last row the rain hit.  Big, cold drops turning into torrents of pouring rain within a matter of seconds!

Before I could get to the end of the field water was standing in the field.  It was coming down in “buckets.”  I was already drenched and it didn’t seem to make any difference if I hurried or not.  But, as I exited the field the tiller, which had been running rather rough, died.  I could get it to start but it would die.  After several attempts and with lightning and thunder a lot closer than I liked I decided to let the tiller stay where it was.  The little ditch I had crossed was already beginning to rise.  Once across I found Darryl coming to assist me.  He had gone down to the house he is building to cover up some material and saw that I hadn’t returned with the tiller.  He had his big umbrella but I had no need of it.  There wasn’t a dry thread on me any where.

I had planned to take my camera with me to photograph the work I was doing but had forgotten it.  I’m glad I hadn’t taken it now.  I don’t think all of that water would have done it any good.