Rambling through central Illinois, eager for a night in the tent – on a fully inflated air mattress, mind you.
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Efforts to accomodate voters in every way imaginable are out of hand. Consider that on April 4, people across Illinois cast ballots at polling places. But because we are waiting until April 18 for mailed-in ballots from absentee voters, we still don’t know some election results. Is there any wonder people question the validity of results? Simple solution: Make the cutoff date for absentee ballots two weeks ahead of the election date. That way we can have results in a timely fashion. … The race to plant the 2023 crop is underway for many farmers. A nice spell of warm, dry weather has tractors in the field everywhere you look – an increasing number of them pulling planters. … As a reminder, the USDA totals show Stark County led Illinois last year with an average yield per acre of 240.6 bushels. Piatt County was first for soybeans with 74.2 bushels per acre. Local counties were as follows for corn: Knox 229.0 bu/ac, Peoria 222.4 bu/ac and Fulton 212.5 bu/ac. Local production for soybeans went as follows: Knox 67 bu/ac, Peoria 64.0 bu/ac and Fulton 62.5 bu/ac.
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The Easter Beaver caused a big stir Monday in Yates City, where several residents posted pictures of the unusual visitor, shown below in a Yates City yard. One cynic said that because beavers move so slowly, this one was a day late for Easter festivities. Actually, this was likely a 2-year-old that left its lodge to find a new home. There the young beaver can devour trees carefully planted by landowners. Due to all their slow-moving travels over land, this is a dangerous time of year for 2-year-old beavers, some of whom allegedly travel up to 10 miles in search of new digs. Here’s hoping the Yates City visitor had left our farm. … As you’ve probably heard, crappie are biting. Among the many wonderful things about spring is that there’s no need to rise early to catch fish. Most days, you are better off to let things warm up, meaning a 2 p.m. start is just fine.
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While some have been fixated on the Navigator CO2 pipeline proposed to run through Knox County, another underground transmission line has quietly been building steam. That is the Archer-Daniels-Midland/Wolf Carbon Solutions 300-mile pipeline slated to pass through Knox and Peoria counties on its way from Iowa to an underground sequestration site east of Decatur. The Peoria County path looks to fall between Brimfield and Elmwood as it travels on south of Peoria. Wolf told the Peoria County Board it planned to file with the Illinois Commerce Commission soon and aims for construction in late 2024 or early 2025. … My money is on ADM over Navigator given all the money the Dwayne Andreas clan has funneled to politicians over the last 60 years. … Parting shot: My problem with this pipeline is that, while landowners directly impacted are paid for the inconvenience, neighboring landowners are not. If one of these things blows up, it will impact more than just the landowner who cashed an easement check.
Contact Jeff Lampe at (309) 231-6040 or jeff@wklypost.com
