Beans!

Beans, beans, the magical fruit
The more you eat, the more you...ummm, yeah

This is the bean field that's behind our house.

 Are they the beans from the oh so lovely, above mentioned little jingle my dad used to sing every time we'd have baked beans for dinner growing up?  Not exactly. 

These are soybeans, a pretty common form of row crop here in central Missouri.  Is it our bean field?  Nope.  Our landlord rents this ground out to someone else who decided to plant it in soybeans this year.  Have you ever eaten a soybean straight out of the field at night while road tripping to the river with your girlfriends and a case of beer?  I definitely, positively, absolutely, may or may not have done this.  


One of the quickest ways to pay off land you've just purchased is to plant it in some type of row crop like soybeans.  Corn would work too!  Don't own the uber expensive equipment needed for planting and harvesting?

Do you take checks?

No problem!  A lot of people hire a farmer who already has this equipment to do the planting and harvesting for them.  Profit from the harvest goes right back to making the land payment (minus the expenses of paying someone to plant and harvest, cost of seed, etc.).

Soybeans are good because they are cheap-ish, easy-ish to maintain, and are less-ish demanding on the soil than corn is.  Ish ish ish, ha!  But, if all the cards play out right (aka good growing season, adequate rain fall, good soil quality, etc.) corn may turn a higher profit.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in central Missouri, it's been a little dry, toasty, and gross this summer!  I snapped a picture of this poor, sad lil corn field while on a run yesterday morning.  And then I ran faster cause the corn started rustling.  Thank you Mel Gibson for creating the movie Signs and forever scarring me for life.

The end.