Duck Season Underway...

...and we are still without a drop of water in each of our four pools.  We had some extensive dirt work done this summer that will allow us to better manage the water levels in our pools, to better manage crops and moist-soil vegetation, and ultimately allow us to hold more water.  The hope this year was that we could get some corn put in one of the fields after the dirt work was done, however we got a late start on the work due to the wet spring conditions. 

Once it began drying out though, it really dried out!  Dad, Jason, and I spent the better part of a day planting about 15 acres in Japanese millet after the work was completed in August.  From that point on, the weather pattern changed to a ~3 month drought.  Japanese millet doesn't take much to grow, just a little rain here and there to keep it moist, but even it didn't stand a chance in the dry weather we've had.  Most of it never even germinated, and what did germinate is a only a few inches tall when it should be a few feet.  Essentially, we have no duck food in our fields this year.  But the dirt work we got done is well worth a year with less than ideal food conditions.  We've killed plenty of ducks in the past without any food in our fields, so we are not too concerned about that. 

Things are starting to change in our favor though...with a 1 inch soaking last week and another 2 inches of rain forecasted in the next few days.  That should be enough to put a little flow in the river and we should be pumping later this week.

And here was our desperate attempt to get a little corn established as the dirt work was wrapping up.  Needless to say, neither the corn nor the water lasted much longer after this picture was taken.