Heading back to Missouri yesterday, I left Denver and drove eastward across the High Plains. There, thanks to a continued drought and a raw early spring, greenery was limited to scattered yuccas, juniper snow fences and the first shoots of winter wheat; it looked more like February than the last day of April.
By the time I reached central Kansas, a warm, south breeze was spinning the wind turbines near Ellsworth and a faint sheen of greenery was spreading through the canopy of riparian woodlands. Blooming redbuds appeared in Junction City and, near Topeka, the leafing of many trees had begun in earnest. Finally, from Kansas City to Columbia, the verdant spring caught up with the date, spurred on by recent heavy rains and mild, humid air.
Tuning into an agricultural radio program, as I often do on my journey across the Great Plains, I learned that farmers across the Central and Southern Plains are still dealing with drought conditions while those in the Midwest, their crops decimated by drought last year, are now facing extremely wet soil following excessive rain over the past two weeks. As of yesterday, only 3% of the nation's corn crop had been planted, compared to an average of 33% by the end of April. While most of us are occupied with the signs of spring, griping about its slow or uneven progress, farmers face the trials of this fickle season on a daily basis.
