Two years ago, on a gloomy, overcast day in early November, I drove through northwestern Minnesota and looked at the crops.

What I saw was a little scary. Few of the row crops had been harvested — even most of the soybeans remained — and soggy fields ruled out any immediate harvest blitz. For many area farmers, November and even December that year required a grueling fight against the elements and the calendar.

Things are radically different going into November this year. Our beautiful September and October allowed farmers to make rapid progress, and harvest is on the home stretch now.

So this promises to be a good November. Farmers and others involved in ag still have work to do, of course, but they’ll also have some time to hunt deer, watch high school and college sports and even follow the development of Minnesota Vikings’ rookie quarterback Christian Ponder.

This is the way November should be.

Area farmers have suffered through some wet, dreary falls in the past few years. Too often, harvest was  long, frustrating  and memorable for the wrong reasons.

This spring was wet and cool, which delayed planting and slowed crop development. Another wet fall would have been even more troublesome than usual, given the less-advanced-than-usual crop. So warm, dry weather this fall is really appreciated by farmers.  Farmers generally are making excellent harvest progress.  Yields are nothing special, but there’s value in getting the crop off in a timely fashion.

To be sure, recent warm temperatures aren’t ideal for all crops– area potato farmers would prefer cooler weather during harvest, for instance. But on balance harvest conditions have been wonderful.

If you’re a city resident, enjoy the beautiful weather. Our farmers certainly are.