In a normal year, Martin Larsen would have the soybeans harvested by now.
But the new normal for Minnesota farmers is that there is no normal.
This year, it rained and rained and rained, and 90 percent of the beans sat soaking in the fields of his 670-acre family farm outside Byron, Minn. Finally, on Friday, the skies cleared. The soybeans were still too soggy to harvest, but he made some headway on the corn.
Minnesota's climate is changing. Winters aren't as cold as they used to be. It rains more, and the rain comes in heavy bursts that wash away topsoil.
You can argue about it, or you can adapt. Minnesotans like Larsen don't have time to argue.
He switched to no-till farming and planted cover crops to protect his lands from the rains that were washing the nutrients out of the soil.
"It's something we had to do to keep the farm productive for the long run," he said. "I have a 7-year-old son. If he wants to farm, we have to keep the farm in as-good or better shape than it was when we got it."
Last week, climate scientists gave the planet a deadline. Stop burning coal, they warned. Get big into biofuels. Plant as many trees as you can while we still have a few glaciers and coral reefs left.