It's a wait-and-see game for some farmers

Mother Nature has a way of playing mind games with a lot of folks, especially farmers.

If you know a farmer, you know how they're hooked on weather reports. If the Weather Channel is available, you can bet it's marked as a favorite on their remote control.

If they have Internet access on their cell phones, the radar is up more often than not.

The weather plays a major role in their lives. Bad weather hurts profits.

You can imagine how some are feeling today thanks to the Flood of 2008.

It's amazing how one farmer can be hurt, while another just miles away is better off.

Such is the case with Bill White and Kenny Hostetter.

White, who lives along State Road 157 north of the Lighthouse Junction, has 85 percent of his family's farmland that's under water.

Kenny Hostetter, who farms 3,500 acres with his family between Lyons and Marco (with a lot of it near the river bottoms), doesn't anticipate having to replant much.

"Everything that we've planted, some of it we've replanted ... it looks like we'll have to replant again," White said.

The Whites farm 2,500 acres, and most of it is in corn.

A lot of the land is between the Lighthouse Junction and Worthington.

"We've got some west of Newberry, every bit of that is under water," White said. "We farm some for (someone) near Prairie Chapel ... some of that is high enough we're not hurting.

"But we've lost a big chunk of (the entire 2,500 acres) ... a big block of it."

Hostetter has been able to inspect most of his land, and he feels fortunate.

"We're actually in better shape than most," Hostetter said. "I've got 130 acres east of Lyons I'll have to replant.

"I had a lot of the bottom ground close to the levee that hadn't been planted anyway. ... (Overall) it's hard to tell right now."

Hostetter and many other residents in the Lyons, Marco and Sandborn area are thankful for all the hard work to save the McGinnis Levee. If it hadn't held, Hostetter wouldn't have been so fortunate.

"If it had busted on the north side, south of Lyons, it would have been bad. That's why we worked on it so hard to try and save everything from there to Sandborn," Hostetter explained.

Hostetter said the volunteer effort to save the levee was incredible.

"It was great. It was unbelievable," he said. "I wished some people had been out there to tell their stories. Everybody who was out there did a great job."

White hopes his family can get back in the fields within 10 to 14 days, but -- you guessed it -- it depends on the weather.

"They're predicting rain at the end of the week (Friday night)," White said. "If we didn't get that, we're looking at seven to 10 days, maybe 14 days.

"So it's kind of a wait-and-see game."

White can remember replanting as late as July 8, but that was with soybeans.

"We're probably going to shut it down around the 4th (of July)," White noted. "It just gets to a point out there, there's simply no use to keep fighting it. Admit that you're whipped and go on."

And watch the weather.

"I've been farming all my life. It's just part of it I guess," White said.