Aaron and Chrissy Schnepel live and farm near Carson, Iowa, in Pottawattamie County, with their son, Brock, a high school sophomore, and daughter, Baylee, an eighth grader. They grow corn and soybeans and some cover cropping on a couple thousand acres with Aaron’s dad, Mark, and uncle, Condon. The Schnepels also have a cow-calf herd. They are involved with the Farm Bureau Young Farmers committee.

There’s not a lot going on. We’re not rolling out a lot yet. It’s always dusty — still dry as far as subsoil. We have planters ready to hit fields, but it’s still dry and anhydrous and pre-planting spraying is getting done. Cooperatives are struggling to get it wrapped up. We kept working on machinery and weaning calves. Pastures got fertilized last Tuesday when others got storms that we didn’t.

Things were moving fast around here this week. A lot has been planted in a hurry. Thursday evening storms were spotty, with our fields getting anywhere from half an inch to nothing. So, planting didn’t slow until Saturday night brought a widespread half inch and a little more spotty rain Sunday evening. It will probably keep us out of the field Monday. Soil conditions have been great, with soil moisture variability but nothing very wet.

The week started out damp around here. The rain Sunday into Monday didn’t amount to much around here at a half an inch or so. I’ve heard not that far away had as much as 3 inches. But the cold temps and lack of sun kept us out of the field until Wednesday afternoon, when we found a farm dry enough to plant some beans. Most places wouldn’t work until Thursday. But things are moving fast again now, with some getting pretty close to done and some just getting started. We’re about halfway through. I’ve planted into some of the driest soil I ever have this spring.

It’s been another dry and dusty week around here, which is great for planting. We’re just getting finished up. Wind has been calm as well, letting spraying and some fertilizer spreading get caught up. We have heard some concerns about frost on some of the early-planted acres and some crusting soybeans east of here where they had hard rains. We didn’t get started early enough or have enough rain for either of those problems on our acres. This week we’ll be moving cows to pasture. The grass looks great.

This week, we worked on moving cows to pasture, tore up the lots they were in and planted our silage corn. We received 1 inch of rain Saturday night and another 0.5 inch tonight should get that corn out of the ground. There was a lot of replanting going on around here this week. I have not seen any of ours needing that. South and east of here saw some rough storms again this week, and there has been some hail — hopefully not enough to hurt the soybeans. When it dries off, I’m sure chopping and haying cover crops will start.