Rain Problems

I'm lucky. All it's seems to do lately is rain around here but that doesn't bother me. We are storing moisture in the ground for next year and actually growing a little grass. It's not good for all people though.<br />n<br />n<a href="http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/10/26/news/local/20-beets.txt" >Rain could spoil record sugar beet harvest</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Seldom does one hear a farmer complain of too much moisture.<br />n<br />n"I am," Ralph Amen said Tuesday morning.<br />n<br />nWith his best-ever crop in the fields and three weeks behind normal harvest, Amen and other sugar beet farmers are getting nervous.<br />n<br />nIf the beets freeze, it will take the heart out a record crop for the Billings farmer-owned sugar refinery, which celebrated its 100th birthday this spring.<br />n"You can't pile frozen beets," Amen said. "We've got to get 'em out of the ground."<br />n<br />n"We need another 10 days to two weeks" of dry weather to finish the harvest, Shirley Michael said as she sat in her dump truck waiting to unload at the Western Sugar Cooperative refinery on the south edge of Billings. "We should have been finished by now."</blockquote><br />n<br />nSince the sugar beet campaign started i have been watching the farmers struggle with the harvest and at this point really feel for them. It would be horrible if they couldn't get their beets out of the ground. The weather forecast is looking good that it might dry up enough for them to get them out of the ground. Yesterday when I was in town I saw some trucks loaded with beets moving through town to the dump. The beets were a little muddy and the trucks were definitely muddy, I hear they are pulling them through the fields with tractors, but they were getting beets out of the ground. Hopefully they can continue.<br />n<br />n<strong>Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace. Kent Nerburn</strong>