Happy haymakers: From Hay To Harvest, Crops Look Outstanding -- The Bismarck Tribune

I assume we should thank mother nature, the farmers, and global warming, pretty much in that order.

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:

Luscious fields of green suck in carbon dioxide and exude tons of life-giving oxygen that absorb moisture and hold it close to the fragrant earth.

From the highest butte top to the farthest horizon an emerald jungle extends out in straight green rows and lush fields of hay.

In this sultry, swollen pause of summer, the only sound in the countryside comes from the haymakers, taking the first crop from the land.

And what a hay crop it is.

Roy Rutherford, rural Regent, says he's seen few, if any, like it. [Regent is about 36 miles south-southeast of Dickinson, just on the edge of the oil patch.]

Rutherford put up big bales of hay that at 1,400 pounds, weigh more than a well-marbled steer, their intended recipient.

And, in general:

• that six-row barley variety could come in at 85 bushels an acre
• going to see 60- to 70-bushel wheat
• five-foot-high mix of grass and alfalfa this summer
• Much of this was due to as much as 19 inches of rain this year (annual precipitation averages 14 - 20 inches across the state)
• best hay year ever by a stretch