The drought of 2005

      Editor: Dave Uphoff

After a record corn crop for the last two years, farmers this year will see a severe reduction in yields. One farmer said that corn will average from 0 to 180 bushels of corn depending on location. Rain storms in the summer are extremely spotty with one farm receiving 2 inches of rain and a farm 2 miles away receiving nothing. Last week, I received 1/3 of an inch of rain while Minonk 1.5 miles away received nothing.

Many farmers have crop insurance that will allow them to receive payments for their crops, the payment being based on how much insurance they had and the expected yield of the crop. Nevertheless, farmers income will decline this year which will have a ripple affect on the local economy. Don't expect to see as many new pickup trucks next year. Governor Blagojevich has applied to the federal government for disaster relief because of the poor corn crop. The bean crop still has a chance to make a decent yield if the rains return soon.

It is always interesting to compare current heat conditions to past years. 92 year old Robert Barth told me that in the extreme heat of 1936, someone literally fried an egg on the sidewalk in front of the Vissering Mercantile Store at Sixth and Chestnut. 1936 still ranks as the all time hottest year with temperatures reaching between 105 to 110 for days on end. With no air conditioning available back then, people had to sleep outdoors to avoid the insufferable heat. There was no electricity in the house where my parents lived so they could not even use fans to stay cool. Can you imagine the pampered citizenry of today coping with those kinds of conditions?

Janis Megow sent me a article from the Chicago Tribune that was published in 1893. The article mentioned Minonk as being one of the hardest hit communities with drought that year. Water was being shipped by train carloads from LaSalle to our fair city. I assume that the water was taken from the Illinois River. Back then all of the wells were shallow and were dried up by the drought. Now we have a 1900 foot deep well that is fed by an aquifer that is not affected as much by the drought.

Due to the heat and the drought, it is a good idea to conserve water by refraining from watering the lawn or washing the car. However, those of you who have planted trees or bushes within the past two years should make sure that those plants receive plenty of water. New plants need plenty of water to make new roots. Older plants with an established root system usually can survive droughts. Trees should receive at least 5 to 10 gallons of water per week depending on the size of the tree. The best method is to let a hose run slowly next to the tree for a few hours so that the water will soak in better.

Even when it starts to rain again this fall, it is a good idea to make sure that new plants, especially evergreen trees or bushes, are adequately watered before winter sets in. You should water new plants up through the end of November or before the ground freezes to make sure they are protected for the winter.

Just because your plant does not show the affects of the drought now, don't assume that it doesn't need water. The affects of a drought do not show up sometimes for another year, which by then will be too late if you failed to provide the plant with enough water this year.

Comments on web page updates

You may have noticed that a few people have established their own web pages using the new community webpage feature implemented on this website in April. Notably, Minonk native Art Kettelhut of Round Rock, Texas and Leslie Limbaugh of Roanoke have been actively updating their community web pages. Art has two active web pages, Art's Corner and This and That. He has been providing us with humorous asides on his webpages and we appreciate his contributions to the web site. Leslie, who is a high school student, has been updating the Minonk Presbyterian Church web page and is also doing a great job. The Immanuel Lutheran Church is starting to update their webpage. I encourage other churches to use the new update feature to provide announcements and activities for their church.

We also encourage others to use the new update feature to send in news items or stories to this web site. I have noticed that some people have submitted their birthdays using the Event category rather than the Birthday category. You should use the Birthday category to send in your birthday announcement since it will stay on the event calendar forever whereas a birthday submitted as an Event category will be removed when the next year rolls around since events are treated as one time occurences whereas birthdays are treated as re-occurring events.

If you create a webpage article and wish to import a Word document, remember that images or pictures imbedded in a Word document cannot be imported into a web page. For this reason, I recommend that you import or paste only text from Word documents and upload the images associated with the document using the Insert Image icon on the Web Update page.

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