Corn is Down! 167"

Being a subscriber to the Our Iowa magazine I was excited to see that they were doing a corn contest. I planted my seeds in late May and began watering and watching. A month later in had only grew about 6". I was getting bummed out. I started dousing it with Miracle Gro and away it went. By the 4th of July it was well past knee high and by mid August I couldn't reach the top. I was really getting excited so I called Edward Jones since they are the offical measurers. I spoke with Rich Mueller from the Mount Pleasant office and he told me to call him back when it was 13". We went on vacation over Labor Day and came back to a taller stalk. I put in a call to Rich and he came out with his daughter Gabrianna to measure it. Once it was cut down I was astounded, it measured 13' 9" from roots to tassle. Rumor is that someone up North has 15' so I wil have to wait and see. The winner of the contest is awarded $200 worth of pork, $200 worth of beef and a $100 ethanol gas card. All I can do is sit back and wait.

If you shuck it, they will come

Oops, this post was still in my draft section, oh well better late then never.

57th annual Sweet Corn Festival 2009! West Point was rollin' in the kernels this month.

I went up on Wednesday night to take advantage of the "shuckfest". Although I didn't sit down and shuck I got some great pictures of the event. There's 17 tons of corn poured out onto Merchmans parking lot and people come from surrounding counties and even other states to partake in the festivities. After shucking, the corn is picked up in milk crates and taken to an ice bath where it's cooled down and loaded into a refrigerated semi trailer. Pretty interesting, huh? I think so. From here it goes to the square where a steam engine cooks it. Now that's allot of corn.