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Summer season back in our sights
Insight
Kim Baldwin
Kim Baldwin

It’s beginning to feel and look a lot more like summer is quickly nearing! The kids have wrapped up their school year, the alfalfa is about to bloom, the cows have come home to graze, and the wheat is waving in the warm Kansas winds. 

After a week of cool rainy days, it’s as if Mother Nature has decided it’s time to contemplate beginning a new season.

The days are warmer. The sun is shining brighter. The crops are growing rapidly. Before long there should be first cuttings of alfalfa in fields. The alfalfa’s tiny purple blossoms are beginning to show themselves hinting that it’s getting closer to begin making hay. 

While driving to town to pick up my kids from their last day of school, the bright blue sky was dotted with planes swooping down to spray fields. The colorful airplanes flying low and running patterns back and forth over fields is a sight I see almost every year around this time. 

From my porch, the distant buzz of an airplane suggesting a quick descent followed by a plane emerging above tree rows is something that still catches my attention. I can’t help but stop what I’m doing to watch these planes dance through the sky for a few moments before I refocus on my current task.

The cattle have returned to the pasture just south of our house to begin their summer grazing. It’s always a happy day when I can look out my kitchen window in the morning and see fat cattle grazing along the creek.

The sight and sound of cattle switching their tails and taking slow steps while grazing on lush grass allows me to briefly calm my mind and appreciate a simple moment during this part of the year.

In recent afternoons I have caught myself briefly looking out into the wheat fields to soak in the view. The wheat has definitely grown and with the combination of the height of the plants and the continuous wind, it has begun to collectively wave daily. The synchronized movement of green is mesmerizing like ocean waves and is both soothing to watch while also reminding me that the green wheat before me will soon ripen to its golden harvest-ready beauty.

Soon we will enter our busy season of summer, but for now, I’ll appreciate moments within these days knowing that summer is definitely in sight!


Kim Baldwin is a McPherson County farmer and rancher. “Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.