Row crop farmers are way behind last year's planting, with corn being about 9% in compared to 46% last year at this time. The wet weather has had a dampening effect on gardening and other outdoors activities for all. In fields near here, some farmers have wheat in, hoping to double crop this year because of high commodity prices. Farming is always full of plans and schemes the outcomes of which are uncertain.

The Iowa Senate called it a week on Wednesday and briefly gaveled in Thursday morning to pray, say the pledge of allegiance and approve Wednesday's journal. House members who weren’t involved in committee work were released around noon on Wednesday. Finishing the budget and some other bills loom, although the clerks last paid day was Thursday. Legislator per diem ended as well. A lobbyist sent a note to Representative Brian Quirk (D-15), and received an automated reply, “The 2011 Legislative Session has come to an end. If you need to contact me please call.” Not quite, Representative Quirk, although some of us believe the government never really began to address the needs of everyday Iowans in the 2011 session.

Prince Charles is scheduled to see a 50th anniversary performance of Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford on Avon Saturday after the wedding. What does that mean to someone who may get bypassed in whatever ambitions he has to be King Charles III? Perhaps he will find remedy for his diminished expectations in the bard. Or maybe a scheme to be employed, like Iowa's farmers planting winter wheat.

This rough spring seems to plague those who care about Iowa's future and even the opulence of a spring wedding is unlikely to cut the bitterness of another week in the post-Reagan society.