corn, Corn, CORN!

It's been fun to watch the fields change over the summer. We saw lots of empty fields when we first arrived.

Then they planted corn, but some fields stayed empty for a while. We thought maybe that was to stagger the corn a little so it doesn't all come off at once, but it was more likely for a crop of something else. 

And the corn started to grow.

They plant corn all over--fields back up on churches, homes, and even cemeteries. We saw a patch about 5 feet wide, but couldn't tell how long it was because it went up over a small hill and down the other side.

And those empty fields? Probably not staggering the crop as much as a different crop--soybeans. The farmers grow corn one year and soybeans the next. The two crops return different nutrients to the soil.

Corn on the left, soybeans on the right

Every now and then you see a renagade stalk of corn in the middle of a field of soybeans.

And the corn grew more.

And it got taller

Because they don't water the corn (there's enough rainfall), corn grows straight and tall to the edge of the fields, no runty corn at the edges of the fields.  

A temple worker took this picture of her husband by the neighbor's cornfield in early July.

Two weeks later, her husband held up a golf club to show how high it had gotten--yes, it's higher than the top of the club!

And now comes the best part:

Fun facts

*Corn on the cob nearly always has an even number of rows.

*Unless a farmer has over 6,000 acres, people here say it's a hobby.

*We expected corn in Iowa, but Illinois isn't far behind. There are approximately 13,000,000 acres of corn in Iowa and 11,000,000 in Illinois. Because the soil here has a faily high clay content and isn't very sandy, the water slowly seeps into the roots, which is good for growing corn.

*The humidity level over a field of corn is greater than the humdity level over the Mississippi (or almost any other body of water)