Knee High by the 4th of July

Greetings and a belated salutations! 

It's been quite a while since I've found a moment or two to post something new, as evidenced by Wanda's Post. 

This past week, we've celebrated the 4th of July in the great ol' U.S.of A!  It's a fine holiday in the U.S.A. and we celebrate it as our independence from Great Britain in 1776.

As Iowans, we've had a saying that the corn in Iowa should be "knee high by the 4th of July".  Of course, that depends on if you're in Northern/Southern Iowa.  Or, if the weather is a warm year like it has been this year or a cool year like it was last year.  On top of that, it depends on where you have your photo taken (if that's what your family does!).  

This year, the month of March in particular, Iowa was supposedly the warmest place on Earth (speaking in  anomalies, although sadly, the link that I was going to use is no longer active) and we've had the recent blocking high pressure that had all of the sissy office workers around here crying like babies!  :-)

Regardless, the crops do not seem to be too crazy ahead of schedule other than that I've noticed the corn is nearly fully tasseled in some spots already, which would seem a couple of weeks early.

As far as tradition goes, we've had our photo taken by a local (defined as somewhere around the Des Moines area) corn field on the 4th of July ever since little Robert was born.

Here are a few of those:

2012: the morning before we headed to Adventureland! Snapped by our lovely neighbors, Mike & Diane.

2011: I don't believe we did anything special but if memory serves me correctly, Molly snapped this photo about a mile North of our place on the S-curves before you get to University Ave.

2010: I believe that this was also snapped by our neighbors, M & D.

2009:  Taken by Bondurant, Iowa by the inimitable Dianne Griffith, Robby's (and now Caleb's) aunt. 

As you can see, the corn looks very much the same, year to year... wish I could say the same for my belly!