My iron-clad weather forecast

I shouldn’t always show disrespect for concern over global warming, but to be honest it is hard to pay it much heed, just by looking out the window.

It wasn’t too long ago – early July – they were scrapping frost off the windshields near Camrose, Alberta – and that was after a cool dry spring…that eventually just mostly dry.

And yesterday I arrived in Eastern Ontario for a few days and it appears to be great weather here for growing grass, but not so good for heat-loving crops such as corn and soybeans.

Looking out the kitchen window at the farm, this morning, there is green, lush growth everywhere. It is another rainy week. The few beef cows in the field certainly can’t keep up to the grass. And anyone trying to make hay is struggling to catch at least three dry days in a row.

Some grain-corn fields south of Ottawa looked to be about chest high while others were barely up to your knees. Having said that, Shouldice Berry Farms just west of Ottawa is reportedly on the street this week with fresh corn, although table-corn in the fields of a couple other market gardens I drove by will be a few weeks yet.

Back in Alberta, one report yesterday (July 23) said Taber corn is at least three weeks late this year due to the cool growing season.

Global warming may be out there, but at the moment I chalk this all up to just variable weather. I’m going to go out on a limb here with this assessment – ‘you just never know what the weather will do.’

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