This isn't Monte writing this week as Monte and Megan have gone back east to visit Koral and Shawn so I, mother Lerwick, have taken on the challenge of getting the news out to all of you. We mothers are astounded every once in awhile at what we will do for our children and this is one of them---I never, ever in my grandest dreams and ideas of great achievements thought I would be writing the Albin news for the PB Post, but here I am.
News for last week that didn't get in: Jan and Ligie Rundell hosted a backyard bar-b-q last Friday in honor of their new grandson, Griffin. The parents who have had to take the back seat of attention are Jeff and Dawn Rundell. Also attending were Matt and Kelly Rundell and family, Leonard Powell of Gering, Jay and Julie Rundell of Potter, Crystal and Shane Zuke of Las Vegas and Art Bartell of Bull Canyon.
Garrett Ross, son of Cindy and Scott Ross, is currently in the Kindred hospital in Denver, CO. He suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle accident near Albin over a month ago. He has made some progress as there seems to be some response to sensory stimuli.
News of a death if always painful, but perhaps even more painful when there is the confusion of unanswered questions that the ragged edge of suicide brings. Illness and accidents seem to be more cleancut in our understanding. Our sympathy goes out to Jerrene Randall who lost her youngest brother, Nate Wall, this past week. Nathan had just turned 64 on Sept. 16. By the time this is published, the funeral, which was held at Ogallala, NE will be over, but cards can be sent to Jerrene at 2705 CR 155, Albin, Wy 82050.
Now that school has started, we would like to include the elementary school here in Albin in our news column. We are hoping for news from some "student reporters," but for this week, we visited with the teachers, which is probably a bit more boring than information we can get from the kids, but for starters, this is what is going on. Miss Nikki Poelma in kindergarten reports that the students this past week have been working on the letter "T". All students know how to write their names and when we visited they were busy getting as many colors as they could on an elephant which they then had to cut out, so they are working with color recognition as well as the use of scissors. Their favorite part of the day? PE and recess!!!
In 1st grade, Mrs. Tidemann reports that Monserrat Serrano will be celebrating his birthday and he will be 7. They are working on the short vowel sound of "A". In math they are working on addition and realizing that no matter the order of the numbers, if you use the same numbers, they will always add up to the same frontwards or backwards.
Mrs. Lori Trevillyan (Freeburg is so much easier to write) reports that her class is picking up speed in math fast facts. They are learning what happens when you add one to anything. A very important subject--they are learning about money. Hmmm--I wonder if some of our govt. workers need to go back to 2nd grade? Odds and evens are another topic of math. In reading they are learning to identify vowels and consonants. They have music on Mon and Wed and art on Thurs.
Mrs Natalie Freeburg in 3rd and 4th grade celebrated the birthday of Lash Branigan who turned 10 on Sept. 19. In math they are working on place values (get them to explain it) as well as writing numbers in word form. In social studies they are studying communities. In reading they are discussing characters in a story as well as the setting of the story. They will also be learning how to do an interview and incorporating this into the writing of a paragraph.
Mrs. Chris Nussbaum in 5th and 6th grade reported the excitement her class felt at being a Blue Ribbon school. Congratulations to the whole staff!!! For the kids who have birthdays in the summer, Mrs. Nussbaum allows them to choose a day during the year to celebrate, so this week they celebrated the summer birthday of Tyler Norris. This next week they will be getting ready for student council election so there will be campaigning, posters, etc. This is open to grades 4-6. WE hope to report the results.
Before leaving the school, Mrs. Diedre Hanson cornered me wanting to report an important mandantory immunization law that was just signed on Aug. 25. All students grades K-12 have to have two chicken pox immunizations or a statement of previously having chicken pox or they will be excluded (from what, I was never sure) until he/she can get the shots. The statement of previously having chicken pox can be written by a parent but does not need a doctor's authorization. This used to be recommended but now is mandantory. This has to be completed by Sept. 25. The city county health is doing clinics in outlying areas with Albin having done theirs on the 16th. If you missed the one in Albin, you can call the city county health and find out where they will be next. Altho there is not an overall limited supply, each clinic will have a limited supply on the day of the clinic due to the nature of processing this type of immunization. It is best to know in advance the specific number of shots that will be needed so it is best to make advance arrangements as there may not be enough prepared for walk ins.
News from Dixie and Howard Malm: Ps 71:5, 8 " For you are my hope, O lord God, You are my trust from my youth. Let my mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your Glory all the day." One of the books we draw from also had the following with this verse, "Your faith in Christ is bread for daily use, not dessert for special occasions!" Oh, how we have lived on that daily bread and have so appreciated all the verses and encouragement you have shared with us! We've helped each other grow in this journey and all praise and glory go to God! Tim had his nurse and tech up at 1 a.m. and along with some meds, he had 8 individual servings of applesauce and not sure how many popsicles before they called us around 5 a.m.! Howard went over and brought Tim back to the apartment for awhile and then returned for breakfast. He had a pretty restless day, but had about a dozen visitors throughout the day so that helped move the day along. We left around 10 p.m. and Tim was asleep so we hope for a restful night! (for everyone) We think the day might have had something to do with all the therapy on Thursday and Friday--we will stretch and exercise him some tomorrow! We pray each one of you enjoy your worship tomorrow and will share what God lays on your heart with us! Like Tim answered yesterday when I said, "God is good," he said, "...all the time!" We now say, "And all the time...God is good!,
In the ag news for last week, copied by Mom from what Monte had written down for last weeks column but didn't get sent in time, bean harvest had been slowed down by lack of dew. Farmers need the dry bean pods to toughen up a little before they can windrow them for harvest. The dry conditions are also making the dryland wheat growers nervous. If the little wheat plants cannot put on good fall growth, winter winds and temps will kill out some of the crop. The last rain in the area was around the first of Aug. On the plus side, much of the corn in the area has reached physiological maturity. That means that if the corn plant freezes and dies, this will allow the corn kernels to dry down. Much of the corn, especially the corn in western NE, partly froze on Sept 6. The average first frost date for Albin is Sept 20 so this is two weeks early. Luckily, most crops were mature enough that it didn't have much effect.
Growing degree units for 2009-2010, April 15-Sept 13 (baseline 50 deg F) are 1881.5 and 2112.5. We've been going on the assumption that approximately 2100 GDUs are needed to reach physiological maturity on most corn in this area. We've now passed that number and most of the corn has reached maturity! After seeing disappointing wheat and now dry bean yields, I'm forecasting irrigated corn yields to be up from last year. As you can see, we were hurting for GDUs this time last year.
Now for this weeks ag news sent to me from Monte via e-mail: Megan and I just made a trip back to eastern NE to introduce baby Milo to my oldest sister, Koral, husband Shawn, and nephews, handsome Lincoln and highly intelligent Jasper (adjectives inserted by Grandma). It was after sundown Fri night and we saw equip lights to the north of the interstate. Sure enough, there was a corn farmer just starting to harvest on Sept 17th! If you remember awhile back, I mentioned a NASS report that seemed to suggest that the northern cornbelt was ahead of the last five years average corn maturity and the southern corn belt was behind. I know in the Albin area we were ahead in GDUs and CO was behind. While driving down the front range this summer, it seemed like our corn in the Albin Area was actually ahead of the corn around Ft Collins and Greeley!
In recent weeks, the corn market has spiked on disappointing corn yields in the southern corn belt and I've been wondering if that would change once corn harvest progressed north of I-80. While filling up with fuel in York, NE, the guy next to me noticed my WY shirt and asked me what I thought about the upcoming WY-Boise state game. He looked to be a farmer so after talking football for awhile I asked him if they were harvesting corn in the area. He said a lot of the dryland corn was ready and confirmed that it was yielding very well. I asked him how he thought it compared to last year and he told me that they never lacked for moisture there and expected they wouldn't give up anything to last year's yields.
We drove on east and a little south to Auburn, NE and found that they were just getting a good start on corn harvest too. It's all dryland corn and soybeans in that area with lots of rolling hills and woody creek bottoms. Last year, my brother-in-law Shawn helped a neighbor with their corn harvest and said the corn he harvested averaged some where around 200 bu/ac--a banner year! We drove around a little and looked at the crops and walked into a few corn fields to check things out. From what I could tell, the corn won't be quite that good, but still looks good. Counting rows and columns of kernels on an ear, I would guesstimate the yield to be in the 160-180 bu/ac range.
Please don't take this for market advice. It just makes me wonder if we're due for a correction or at least a firming up of this corn market as corn harvest progresses north. Unlike the wheat, there seems to be a strong enough local demand to handle the price increase and the basis has only moved around $0.05/bu as compared to last year.
As far as the gardening news goes--your green bean plants should be pulled up as well as the cucumber plants. You can roto-till the area where they were. To encourage the ripening of tomatoes, it is good to cut back all greenery that doesn't have a tomato on it--you can actually do this the middle to end of Aug. with our shorter growing season. If you cut back beautiful but useless growth, the energy of the plant will then go into the fruit production and ripening. An idea for composting--how many of you have access to the multitude of empty cattle mineral tubs that the local farmer/ranchers accumulate but don't know what to do with? If you offer to trade some zuchinni for some tubs, they will probably give you some just to get you with your zuchinni off the place Get a drill and drill holes at random all around the tub as well as at the bottom. Set this near your garden and start throwing your kitchen scraps into it as well as grass and yard trimmings and clippings. To keep the flies down, cover the kitchen scraps with a layer of dirt. Cutting melon rinds into smaller pieces will help them compost quicker. Toss in a worm now and then from your garden to help the composting process.
This wraps it up for now.
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