waiting for the drop

after work i went for a short jaunt out into porter county to have a look at some fields i was exploring a few days ago...it was raining...again...there is change on the way which we wil attend to in a bit...fields first...

this particular field has a drainage ditch running though it with a grass berm and it seems to be emptying into a culvert of sorts that probably runs under the road...in itself no issue...

that the water is flowing back across the road a few yards farther along from the overflowing ditch on the opposite side of the road seems to negate the drainage some...at least for now...it will dry out eventually...

the surplus water out there has decided to cut another drainage channel about parallel to the permanent one...this will vanish too...especially if the field is tilled in spring...given the growing number of no till fields i am seeing lately it may not be and, if so, there may be a second drainage ditch along that filed contour given enough precipitation...

there is a lot of standing water in the fields...collecting in the low areas from acre to acre...

and some of it has found a way through the berm...why some of these fields were tilled after harvest is an unanswered question i have...still researching the "whys" of that...is seems like an invitation to erosion...someone needs to convince me i am mistaken...

when i got home my thermometer read forty-two degrees ( fahrenehit ) falling from an alleged 9 i have no emperical evidence ) of fifty-one degrees on its way to a forecast low of ten degrees...forty-one degrees gone in a matter of hours...

both the winter rye...

and the winter wheat beds are bereft of now cover ( and the berries and onions for that matter )...

both the rye and the wheat are more than a little coated in water which, if the wind doesn't do some drying...and with the cover the 2 X 12s that comprise the frames of the beds gives it may not...it will be ice soon enough...this does not bode that well since it is forecast to remain below freezing for more that twenty-four hours and an even lower low tomorrow night..we'll have another look on sunday perhaps to see if we can assess whatever damage there might be...to expect none strikes me as being unrealistic if not verging into unwarranted optimism...the bane of gardening/agriculture.