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Watering the Sweet Corn
Early morning observations…
My wife and I live on a small farm in southeastern Wisconsin. We have a farmhouse made of rock, a stream, a pond, and 4 acres of land. We used to raise chickens, but now we focus mostly on growing organic produce. We use no chemicals of any kind on anything we grow. None. Who wants to grow food using poison?
Unlike our raised beds for much of the other produce, the corn patch is too far away to water from the faucets on the house. This means I have to fill buckets, load them in the wagon attached to the tractor, and water it by hand in the back field. I do this early in the day before the sun becomes too intense.
When I come to the corn patch, the first thing I notice is the chorus of songbirds…..the conk-la-REEEE of the red-winged blackbird among the cattails calling out to his friends. From another direction comes another conk-la-REEEE acknowledging his call. Above me in the trees, I hear the dee-dee-dee of the chickadee, letting the others know there is a visitor. It is not unusual to see sandhill cranes or wild turkeys in the neighbor’s field. Deer are frequent visitors as well. Less common are possums and mink, but they do show up from time to time.
