first corn picking

Here's the first picking of my sweet corn this week.  On May 26 I planted 4 rows of Butter and Sweet.  Maturity was supposed to be 75 later.  But I picked it 70 days later and it was a little too old.  We froze this picking here and got 8 pints of frozen.  There's nothing quite like walking down your rows of corn the first picking.  Three weeks after May 26 I planted 4 more rows, to spread out the harvest.

fodder's in the bale

"When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock" is the first line of a James Whitcomb Riley poem from America's era between the Civil War and WWI. In Monterey nowadays the fodder's in the bale. What I see today is almost the same as this photo I snapped two years ago.

tall corn

Monterey corn has outgrown the Broadway musical's line: the corn is as high as an elephants's eye. An elephant stands 10-13 feet at the shoulders. Its eye is positioned below the shoulder top. Here's a stalk of corn. It measures 153 inches, 12.75 feet, as long as a Mazda Protege

corn is high

It rained and the corn jumped up, as locals say. Pipeline workers entered the fields of 11-foot stalks to do maintenance on the station behind our house.

corn harvest

Farmers get out all the horses, the picker, a wagon, and, in this case, a daughter and march into the corn fields on days like today. The ears drop with a thud. The horses look interested and up for the challenge.

corn harvest

Most of the corn around Monterey is still on the stalk and in the field. But harvest has begun around the edges of the fields. The first cuts are being made and bundled and tied and then picked up on wagons such as this one.

up in smoke

East of Monterey, when I drive to Souderton for my job Tuesday morning, I see the Limerick nuclear machine. One of those puffs is me turning the pipe organ on and using electricty.

I see this sight right after I turn north off of Route 23 in the village of Histand, which is 2 miles or so east of Route 100. If you like the Byzantine Pennsylvania web of roads, this is West Bridge Road. In four miles I'll be in Spring City. Cross the Skylkill and I'm in Royersford.

Hey, I like farmers who leave the corn stalk in the rough. Monterey farmers whack and chop them to the ground asap.