The wheat was ready to cut this week. We have had grand weather, with almost no rain for two weeks. If it rains when the wheat grains are fat, much of it gets knocked off the stems and falls to the ground.

So beginning early this week the combines were on the fields. The grain was being harvested and the trucks were lining up at the giant graineries spotted all over north and northwest Ohio.

The weather forecast was for rain either tonight or tomorrow. Last night and tonight, the combines were running full speed as the farmers attempt to get all the wheat cut and shipped by those giant semi trucks to the "elevators" and grain buyers' silos.

Right now the fields are full of huge expensive machines and trucks, with their headlights on and their wheels spinning through the cut stubble. It will go on all night and into tomorrow, when by my visual inspection today the grain will have been all harvested.

The combines are like today's giant expensive farm tractors. They have enclosed cabs with air conditioning (in this heat and humidity they need it), radios, CD players, computers, telephones, etc. But even in those comforts the men and women running the machines must be dearly wanting some sleep by now.

All this means your flour and bread and cereals and anything baked may be a bit less expensive this year. Last year our wheat cut was good, but the grain count per stalk was low because of the earlier drought conditions.

This year's harvest may be the best in decades, even though fewer and fewer acres of wheat are being planted. Corn is king now. Ethanol made that happen.

So tonight I salute the wheat farmers. They deserve a little applause.

Come the end of the harvest, go get some well-deserved sleep.
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One more thing:

There is a blog war going on here. So I am de-friending the participants.

I don't read spiteful crap like they have written.

Who cares, anyway. I have better things to do with my time.