It was 10:30 and he had nothing to show for his morning except recovering the escaped cows and repairing the fence. Luke headed back to the shop where he found 6 messages for him on the shop phone. One from the bank, needed to discuss his crop loan; one from the granary wanting him to sell some more beans (why of course they did, since they were so low!); One from Mr. Cotham wanting to know how his crops were going to yield this year since it was so dry; One from the Farm Bureau concerning the claim from his storage barn that burned last spring; One from Shandy at the FSA office, she’d found an error on the crop reports they did yesterday, and the last call from the Co-Op, wanting to know how much fertilizer he was going to need to be spread on his pasture. He huffed, as dry as it was fertilizer would just burn up the fields. Guess everyone was trying to just squeeze every drop of money out of any resource. The drought was taking its toll on all local Ag related businesses. He didn’t blame the Co-Op, they, like he, were still hoping for rain. He called The Farm Bureau, the Co-Op, Mr. Cotham, Shandy and the Bank but elected not to bother with the granary for the time being.

Grabbing another breakfast bar he headed for the tractor with his spray rig hooked to it. He had to get those beans sprayed before they got any bigger or it would not be possible to spray them. If he didn’t get them sprayed the weeds would take over before time to harvest. He quickly calculated the number of acres he still lacked along with the time frame he needed to get the job done. Too many acres, not enough man hours before the soybeans and the weeds would be too big. That’s when he heard the bam! He eased the tractor’s throttle down and looked back. One boom of the spray rig was flapping like a broken arm. He’d hit a root or a rock and the boom had broken. He stopped the sprayer, lifted it up and headed for the shop. Down time was not figured in his earlier calculations and this only made him further behind. He had to hurry.

He was struggling to get that stubborn bolt off of the sprayer when it hit him about the suit still at the dry cleaners. He checked his watch, after three. He’d have to rush to get to town in time to get that damned suit. Throwing the wrench a little too hard into the tool box he cleaned his hands quickly before jumping into his truck again and heading the 18 miles towards town. As he passed his scorched crops the sick feeling in his gut hit him with a vengeance. Last spring he’d been so hopeful for a good crop year as he planted his crops. Then the late freeze hit and his tender 2 inch high corn died of frost bite along with most of the ornamental trees in their yard. Replanting corn is never fun but a necessity especially since the expensive fertilizer had already been spread for the year. Some of the replanted corn never saw a drop of rain. It poked its little head up out of the cracked soil determined to survive. Now the stalks were weak from the drought and the corn would begin to fall down soon and it’s not even near time to shell corn. One can’t combine corn stalks lying on the ground. He’d heard of a guy east of here that had made some kind of contraption that he attached to his combine that helped rake the down stalks into the combine throat. He’d have to check on that. It looked like he was going to need one if he was going to get any yield at all.