Hay Delivery

A neighbor called a couple of weeks ago and said that he wanted to buy some hay.  I have a large hoop building that I store my hay in, and it works great, but I when I load the hay I enter on the east side and load it west to east. Then I sell the hay from east to west with my last cutting going out first until I reach my first cutting which is the last cutting to go out the door.  For those with experience in inventory/production, I follow the last in first out (LIFO) method, not because of any financial inventory valuation planning, but rather when you are filling a tube from one side and have to empty the tube from the same side, it just ends up that way.  The reason I say all of that is because when my neighbor called for hay I was into a cutting that was put up with a little too much moisture and it was dusty and could have mold spots in it.  Since he has bred cows and I've heard that cows can abort from hay mold, I suggested he wait until the following week when I had moved into hay that I know would have no mold dust in it.   He said no problem so I delivered him hay this week.  He said he'd take all of the hay that I had which was great!  I cut him a good deal and he would be getting some of my best hay at a really good price.  I weighed up the first load and delivered it and went for the second.  The second load was mostly third cutting and a couple of the first.  When I got down to his place to have him unload, I warned him that the bales on the top of the load were really heavy, and wouldn't you know that his tractor wouldn't pick them off.  Those bales are all my Bobcat can handle so I know that they are up near a ton per bale.  So back down the road I went to put the top bales back into the hoop building.  After getting my truck and trailer stuck in the snow on our farm and pulling it out with the tractor, I finished up the delivery.  I have about 20 bales of hay left to sell.  They should be super high protein and very leafy.  The last load of hay should be a good seller, but the buyer will need to be careful to have a large tractor/loader or a big skidloader to be able to move them around.

The Blizzard Took Its Toll

Sara lost a buck goat that she was renting to breed her milk goats during the recent blizzard.  Sara had become very attached to this little buck and since Sara is definitely the kid who is most into animals, she takes the brunt of the loss when one is lost.  We had a blizzard last week and the goats had gone into one of the huts that is in their pen to get out of the wind and snow.  The wind was blowing 40+mph and the temperature was in the single digits.  We could barely see 20yrds and the weather was brutal.  When Sara went out for late-afternoon chores she noticed that the buck didn't get up when she looked in on them.  She and George brought the buck into the house and started the process of drying him out.  He was a young Nubian buck goat.  Compared to Sara's mature Nubian female, the buck was more like a kid.  Its fur was soft and it was half the size of the female.  All this is to say that it was probably much more susceptible to the weather due to its age.  Sara and George used a hair dryer and towels to dry the buck which took quite a long time.  As a side note, if you've ever been around a buck goat you know that they smell ghastly.  This buck was no exception and as the wet hair was warmed and dried that ghastly smell filled the house.  By drying him out and keeping him warm in the house he really came around and by morning looked great, but he wouldn't get on his feet.  When Sara tried to get him to his feet his status totally collapsed.  It was like the act of moving him threw his body into shock and he expired within minutes.  It was another tough learning experience for George and Sara.  To add to the pain of the loss, Sara had to call the owner of the goat and explain what happened and discuss fulfilling the contract that was agreed to regarding the loss of the goat that she was renting.  Tears were shed but Sara did a great job, both dealing with the animal emergency and the responsibility that comes with informing someone of a broken contract. 

Tractor

My Oliver 1850 had a transmission problem about a month ago when I was trying to bale corn stalks.  It turns out that a fork in the transmission was broken and would have taken a lot of $$ in labor to get to the fork to repair the tractor.  Since I've started using the tractor a lot more than I used to and the tractor is as old as I am, this was leading to more age and stress related failure.  Of the tractor that is!  I did put some money into an overhaul over the winter, but the tractor broke twice when doing hay this year.  Tractor breakdown during haying is a big problem and it for sure cost me some hay.  As much as I liked the old Oliver for haying, I had to trade it in on a newer tractor.  It's also a different shade of green.  John Deere green.  I'm hoping for the best with this tractor...

Cattle Move

The cattle were moved from the back of the farm to their winter paddock next to the house.  It worked pretty much as planned without any issue.  The plan was to setup string fencing that kept them from moving out across each of the sections of the pasture.  Once they were in the top part of the pasture the gate was closed on them and they were allowed to wait for a while.  Next George went down with a large round bale on the skidloader to entice them up to the paddock.  The bale was dropped and the cows moved in.  With the gate closed behind them they were safely in their winter home.  That left the calves at the back of the farm.  The way the string fences are setup, the calves are able to slip under the strings and move to where ever they want inside of the pasture or enclosed field.  Since they have been ranging out during the day it allowed us to move the cows without having them together.  We wanted to separate the cows because we needed to wean the calves.  George had the idea that if we moved the cows the calves will run to the cows, which is what they did.  Now the cows and calves are divided by panel and we're waiting for everyone to calm down.  It usually takes a few days for the bawling to stop!

SKUNK! Update

Sharon made the decision to get a batch of new chicks.  I'm not sure of the exact number but Dan said he thinks it's 40 which would be just about the number killed by the skunk.  An interesting note regarding our adult chickens.  We have a large turnip field that has kept its greens even through the cold and the latest snow.  We picked some of the greens and the chickens seem to love them.  Who knew that chickens would like turnip greens?

SKUNK!

Not too long ago a skunk made its way into the young chickens area of the barn.  Sharon heard the chickens in the middle of the night (windows closed and sound asleep - mother hearing...) making a racket.  The thing with a skunk, at least in our experience with chickens, is that they kill first and then come back to eat what they've killed. When Sharon woke me I thought she said there's smoke in the barn!  After saying huh a couple of times I figured out that it was SKUNK!  We ran outside to dispatched the skunk and save what chickens were left.  When we got the skunk cornered in the barn I had a quick thought - when I dispatch this cornered skunk I'm going to end up smelling like skunk, but to save the rest of the chickens I just hoped for the best.  Luck was with me and the skunk never sprayed.  Luck was not with us as far as the chickens were concerned.  Sharon lost 41 of her young chickens to the skunk.  Next was the management decision.  More chicks this late in the year, or smaller flock with new chicks in the spring?

Winter Movements

Sharon moved the chickens into the barn, and just like every year she wonders if she could have kept them outside in one of the fields a little longer.  Since it's 24 degrees this morning and the chicken water bowls are frozen, she probably made the right choice.  If there's one thing we've learned it's that if you wait until the cold weather forces you to move, some type of cold-weather emergency forces your hand and the stress on animal and farmer is high.  I've been keeping the cattle in the back 9ac which is all the way at the back of the farm.  The water lines don't reach back that far so we use the green pickup with a water tank in the bed to keep the cattle watered.  There must have been some water in the handle because this morning the handle was frozen open.  It should warm up soon enough this morning but it just means that the cattle chores get pushed back into the days activities.  Today also starts the beginning of the 2010 pheasant season which is really for us the beginning of the winter season.  If things around the farm haven't been completed by now, chances are that they won't get done before we freeze in.  We host quite a few hunters the opening week - getting to see old friends that we haven't seen since last year, and meeting new ones for the first time.  This year it looks like there will be about 20 people from out of state.  Its always a fun week that we look forward to every year.

Harvest Complete

Harvest went very quickly this year.  With the weather as dry as a bone for about a month it was the perfect weather for harvesting.  I don't think there's more than a couple of corn fields still unharvested in the county.  I helped a neighbor with harvest again this year, and it always amazes me how much corn and beans come out of the fields.  The other thing that amazes me is the amount of wildlife that pours out of the corn fields when it's harvested.  Deer, raccoon, opossum, pheasant and rabbits all pour out the end of the rows as the combine pushes through.  What makes it really exciting is the distances that the animals have to go when they run out of the corn to make it to cover.  As farmers have moved away from having cattle and toward specializing in row-crops, farmers have pulled the fences out of their fields which has allowed the farmer to plant right up to their property line.  This has dramatically reduced the amount of brush and grass along the field edges and can mean a half mile or more run, walk or fly to cover.  Not good for the animal breaking for cover with hawks and other predators (including the occasional hunter) waiting for their opportunity at a meal, but for those watching it can be an opportunity to get a great look at some animals that otherwise you may only get a glimpse of at night while driving like raccoon or opossum.  If you have the time and see a combine finishing up a field, grab a pair of binoculars, your kids if you have some, and stick around to watch those last rows of corn come out.  It's usually a fantastic wildlife viewing event worth waiting for.

Sighting

This morning we had a very exciting sighting.  Underneath of the gate leading out into the pasture there was something sitting there.  It was very dappled and camouflaged and very still, but we could tell that it was something interesting.  George had jumped out of the truck and gone into the house but Dan and I looked at it from a distance and wondered.  George was going out with the muzzleloader to deer hunt and we let him know that he should look at the "thing" when he went by.  Once he had gone past the "thing" I went out to look at it.  It was a quail!  As I walked up to the gate it ran off into the grass.  That is awesome!  Iowa DNR had done their annual road side survey in August this year, and for the first time in decades, NW Iowa had no quail sighted during the survey.  Normally quail are never this far north in Iowa because of our cropping, cover types, and weather, but in the next county south of us, they have been known to have quail.  And while we heard a quail in the spring and have every once in a while in previous springs, we never expect to see them in the fall.  I'm wondering if the cover crop with its abundance of seeds, borders and edges, and the way our farm is broken into edges from our many crop types and rotational grazing has made a habitat change that has held the birds here.  What ever the reason we're very excited to see a quail this time of year.

Allelopathy

Yesterday as the soybeans were coming out of our fields we discovered an issue.  The objective of planting soybeans this year was to "renovate" an old alfalfa stand.  The reason for renovating alfalfa is that as the years go by, alfalfa stands become weak and alfalfa plants die in the stand.  This leaves large gaps between plants which reduces the amount of crop produced per acre.  Also, as alfalfa plants get older the plant stems get thicker which creates hay that is stemmier rather than leafier.  With the nutrition being in the leaves, stemmy is not better.  But you may ask, why not just reseed?  The reason is that alfalfa use what is called allelopathy.   Allelopathy is a way for a species to control the distribution or concentration of its own or another species through the release of a chemical.  For whatever reason, alfalfa doesn't want itself or other alfalfa seeds to germinate near itself.  This prevents alfalfa from being reseeded and why alfalfa fields need to be renovated every four or five years as the stand wears out.  We tried to renovate the field by growing soybeans this year, giving the field time to lose its toxicity to alfalfa.  But if you look across our now harvested soybean fields, where there should be just dirt, there is a green hue of alfalfa.  So the questions are:  Do we spray something this fall to kill the alfalfa and hope that the allelopathic chemical is gone in the spring to allow germination, or do we plant something else like oats for hay and put alfalfa back in for the following year?  Maybe there is another that we haven't thought of yet.  Guess I'll also need to get more input on this.

Beans

If you're reading this and don't live near farm country you may not know that harvest is in full swing.  Here harvest is going strong and unlike last year, the weather is perfect.  With cool nights and occasional frost, the days are dry, and that makes for perfect harvest weather.  Most everyone around our parts are wrapping up beans (soy), and are starting to open up the corn fields.  I've started helping a neighbor harvest the different farms in the area that he farms.  My job is hauling, which means I drive the trucks and tractors to pull the grain to the elevator in town.  Not hard work but it can be nerve racking running a tractor through traffic.  Not that we have much traffic.  I remember when I lived in MD and helped harvest tobacco, pulling racks of tobacco with tractors through traffic.  Now that was serious traffic!  Our beans look really good and should be ready to harvest in a couple days.  Bean prices look great this year so I'm excited to get our beans to town and get them sold.

Cover Crop

We uploaded a new YouTube video showing our 10ac cover crop test plot.  It was an interesting experiment.  While we were recording the video the mosquitoes were unbelievable, so you'll have to excuse the cameraman (George) for the camera movement as he swatted the mosquitoes away and some of my head movements trying to avoid having all of my blood drained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9RFWjQ1F0

GRP

The NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) was out to our place the end of last week.  We participate in the Grass Land Reserve Program (GRP) which is a conservation program designed to keep grasslands, grasslands for all of the wildlife and environmental reasons that converting to cropland disturbs.  As part of the program they come out every year or so to document and observe our operation and to make sure that we are still in compliance and also to give advice.  I've mentioned before one particularly harmful piece of advice that I was given by their grazing specialist who is no longer with NRCS.  That advice still continues to impact our operation and has allowed us the opportunity to try different grazing techniques in an attempt to heal the setback that the advice caused.  Anyway, they have a new GRP manager (I think that is what he is) and the local NRCS office wanted to bring him by.  They came out and also had a Pheasants Forever representative with them.  We did a quick pasture walk and discussed our current operation, past operation, and future direction, with the takeaway that they wanted to see what the pasture looked like next year after this years MIG/mob grazing/Holistic Management grazing results can be seen to see if we might want additional grazing advice.  I am excited to see how this years grazing leads into next spring, advice not withstanding...

Wet Bales

I can say that I've never put up any bales that were wet... until now!  There were several bales that I was watching because I was worried that they baled wet.  They baled with high moisture but I didn't think they were that wet, but I can say "yes they were too wet!"  I'm going to pull the offending bales out of the hoop building.  Man they smell!  Lesson learned, and hard lesson at that.  The last cutting is on pallets so I have to pull the bales, and the pallets stack everything outside, then put the pallets back down and the hay back on the pallets.  This is going to take a while...

We lost a calf yesterday.  It was very quick.  The calf was down the day before yesterday, and one of our neighbor/customers stopped by and talked with Sharon who must have pointed out the calf.  Sharon called me up from the back of the farm and when I came up the neighbor said that he thought it was pneumonia based on how the calf was standing with his legs way back.  He also pointed out that the calf was hanging out around a mud puddle to cool down from his fever.  That's the difference between lots of experience with sick cattle and not.  We knew something was wrong, we just didn't quite know what.  I tried to treat him with antibiotics but calf went down so fast.  I did quite a bit of research on cattle respiratory infection and posted on-line for additional info, but it was more for the next time I have the issue rather than this particular case.  Cattle resp. infections seem to be prevalent in calves that are in feedlots or confinement type operations such as dairies, but it's also a known problem on open pasture as well.  There are many recommendations for prevention through confinement management and use of vaccines but since we don't really confine our cattle or pre-treat our calves I guess it really comes down to watching for problems more diligently and treating them at the first sign of being sick.  So if you've ever wondered why non-treated, "all natural" farm products are more expensive?  Here's an example.  Loss is higher and management is higher.  How much easier would it have been to have treated the calves when they were born with an 8-way vaccine that covers many issues...

Hay Stocks

With this years hay put up its nice to see that we have a great stock of hay on hand going into winter.  The haying went well and I put up some very nice hay.  May be a little on the high moisture side, but as of today it looks great.  Since the hay is up we've been working on getting the fence replaced down in the back 9ac of the farm so that I can move the cows down there to finish out the year.  Its been both a pleasure and a chore.  With the kids back to school, I've had to do much of the work myself until late in the afternoon when their finally free to help.  I've been able to listen and look at the changing season which has been very nice.  It allows me to make some observations and I've noticed a couple of really interesting things.  One is that when I look out across the fields I've noticed that our farm has a great number of birds flying over it compared to my neighbors farms.  I assume that's because we have a greater number of bugs that are living on our diverse landscape.  I've also observed that this years weed population is significantly higher than past years.  Thistle has been an especially difficult plant to get out of the pasture, but with the amount of clover and other forbs in the pasture I don't want to do anything radical that might knock back the diversity.  I'm hoping that by continuing to increase diversity we'll eventually get the thistle marginalized.

Last Cutting of 2010

I cut raked and started to bale my last cutting of hay for the year.  The weather has been a little cool, but I think that this cutting will be my best of the year.  The wind yesterday was both a blessing and a hassle.  It helped to dry the hay down pretty quickly, but it also blew any north-south windrows around and made a mess of the field.  Because they're calling for a 30% chance of rain tonight I didn't let hay scattered on the field slow me down.  I just baled what I could when I would get to windrows that were too spread out to pickup and kept going.  I baled last night starting at around 8PM when the relative humidity(RH) got to about 70%.  The humidity was sucked up by the leaves and kept them from shattering while I baled.  I baled about a third of the field by midnight when the RH was too high and brought the bale moisture up too far.  There's always a nagging fear that when I bale into the night I can bale too long and pickup too much moisture in the bales.  That can lead to bales heating and actually starting a fire.  It would be nice to have an on-the-fly bale moisture tester on my baler, but with my luck it'd be one more thing that would break down during baling and with the small windows of opportunity that I've had for good baling days this year I don't need another thing from keeping me from striking while the iron's hot.  I'm waiting for the RH to go down this morning so that I can get back too it before it's too dry and I have to stop again.  The window of opportunity will close quickly once the sun shines on the field for long. 

Cornish Cross

After Sharon read my last post about Freedom Rangers and Cornish Cross she said that it sounds like I'm disparaging the Cornish Cross.  I read what I wrote and I can see where someone might look at the last post and agree with her, so I want to make sure that I try to clarify myself.  The intent wasn't to disparage the Cornish Cross since it's the bird that we've really had great success with on pasture and have really liked their flavor and texture.  I was really trying to show the differences between the traits in the two types.  There is a reason that the Cornish Cross is the most popular meat chicken - it's because all of the traits that make it a great meat bird have been bred into it.

Freedom Rangers / How to cut up a whole chicken

Yesterday we processed our last batch of chickens for 2010.  Sharon tried a new breed of chicken this year called a Freedom Ranger.  The Freedom Ranger looks similar to a rode island red but it is bred specifically for pasture raising.  Unlike the Cornish Cross our standard pasture raised chicken, which grows very quickly and becomes very very slow as it grows, the Freedom Ranger grows a little more slowly and keeps its speed.  I guess I need to explain slow and quick in a chicken.  When we think of chickens, we mainly think of a bird capable of outrunning a human, like in the move Rocky, where Rocky had to run down the chickens to increase his quickness.  Those chickens were not the Cornish Cross meat bird!  Rocky's grandmother could catch a Cornish Cross... which is why Cornish Cross chickens are protected by their pen 24 hours a day as they move across the pasture.  If not, every predator in the area would being enjoying Cornish Cross chickens before we had a chance to sell them to our customers.  The Freedom Ranger on the other hand would give Rocky a run for his money.  The Freedom Ranger was allowed to run the pasture during the day, and at night they would gather in their pen and wait for it to be closed-up to protect them at night.  From a meat perspective, the Freedom Ranger takes a few more weeks to grow, is longer in the body, has a longer neck, and and doesn't have the appearance of obesity that a Cornish Cross does.  Additionally the Freedom Ranger has more feathers and the feathers are very soft.  When I mentioned the feathers to Sharon, she said the that Cornish Cross is actually bred with fewer feathers specifically with plucking in mind.  Plucking with the Freedom Ranger wasn't an issue at all.  They plucked beautifully and I thought the processing (gutting) was easier than the Cornish Cross.  Sharon still has to do the math to determine if the savings on feed (they eat less than the Cornish Cross) and management costs make up for the smaller size and longer growing time.  Oh yeah, and then there is the taste test.  We did sell some of these birds to customers at cost so that we can get opinions on the taste, texture, and finish as compared to the Cornish Cross.  We'll keep you posted on the taste and customer feedback.  One last note.  We put together a video on how to cut up a whole chicken to help our customers save some money. How to cut up a whole chicken

Chicken Processing #2 Done!

We finished 3 days of chicken processing.  WaHoo! We didn't have any major breakdowns and kept on a pretty good roll most of the time.  I'm always very pleased that our family is able to work through the long days, in less than comfortable conditions, (today it was nearly 90 degrees) for 3 days.  That's not to say that it doesn't "stretch" our family dynamics, but we survive and thrive even while we are very glad to see the 3rd day come to an end.  We still have one more major processing day or two lined up in a week or two to complete all of the broilers before fall, but those birds will be done at a more leisurely pace since most will be for our family.  At lunch yesterday we were contemplating the fruits of our labor and looking forward to the cold winter days being warmed by the comforting smell of a delicious chicken roasting in the oven.  Our family really gets charged up knowing that other families will also be enjoying the chickens that we raised and processed.  It really is a great feeling knowing that we're able to share the fruits of our labor with our community.  We even had time to give a few tours over the three days to some of our chicken customers.  We think that it's important for our customers to see where and how their food products are being raised.  That's the beauty of buying locally.  Not only are you supporting local farmers but you have the opportunity to look behind the scenes, ask questions and be discerning about something as important as the food you put into your families bodies.  Our farm isn't laid out in perfect rows and right angles but it has a beauty that has to be experienced.  We invite customers and anyone interested in how we farm to stop by for a farm tour.  We're proud of the work we do, how we raise our animals, how we work to be good stewards of the land and are happy to show it to others. 

Chicken Processing Prep

This week we're gearing up for the last chicken processing of 2010.  We've made some minor adjustments to our processing area by putting down crushed cement in some of the areas that we work,  moving our cones to hang between cones instead of hanging off of trees, and this time we've made sure we have a couple of heating elements for our scalder on hand.  The scalder heating element seems to be our weak link so we're going to make sure that we don't get bottle necked by this again.  We'll process chickens starting Wednesday and wrapping up Saturday.  This time we won't have any help, so we need to make sure that we're not slowed down by any equipment failures. 

Teamwork

My brother came over yesterday to lend a hand getting hay out of the field.  We put together an efficient team to get the work done.  It took all afternoon, but it was very efficient and we flew through the process.  Sharon ran two trucks connected to trailers that could carry about a dozen bales at a time.  She dropped one off one truck and trailer for unloading took another back out to the field to be loaded.  Tim was running a skidloader out in the field picking up bales and putting them on trailers and I would unload the trailers around the paddock or in the hoop building.  While we were moving bales, George was running the tractor to rake the remaining hay in the field so that the hay was ready to bale once we had the bales picked up.  It was awesome.  Next year we'll have almost double the alfalfa and that will really add to the time spent in moving bales.  And if Sharon thinks I complain about the accuracy NOAA weather now, wait until we have 100ac of alfalfa to manage!

Hay + Breakdown + Rain

The second cutting of alfalfa hay has been what you might call a disaster.  Since it has been the wettest July on record it has been tough to get the hay cut, and when I did it got some rain on it.  Worse yet was when I was baling my tractor broke down after a dozen or so bales were rolled.  I would have run over to my brothers and picked up his tractor, but my truck had a flat that same evening so I was stuck.  Once I finally got the flat fixed I did get the tractor, but by then it had rained again.  I ended up raking the hay again but this time with the wheel rake set to fluff the hay rather than rake it into a windrow.  It worked well and the hay was still in okay shape, but when I went to use the baler the slip clutch was slipping too much.  Etc, etc, etc.  Finally I get things rolling again and when I'm about 1/4 from finishing I run out of bale rap!  And then the rain again last night.  So as I write this I'm wondering what to do with the the remaining hay on the field.  Not an easy decision really.  On a positive note we did have another heifer calf this morning and she's nursing from her mama and she looks great!

#51 Update

The next thing that we have to deal with for cow #51 is retained placenta.  Retained placenta is a condition where the placenta isn't expelled within 24 hours after birth.  I called the vet to get his advice and he said that we should just let nature take its course unless the cow starts to show signs of illness.  He said that they used to go in much sooner and physically remove the placenta, but what they are finding now is that the outcome is better if they just let her do her thing and only intervene if things start to go in a bad direction.  Since she seems to be doing fine, and is feeding normally, we'll keep an eye on her.  He did say if I can take her temp, that would allow for a good indication of an onset of infection.  A friend had a good tip for taking the temp.  He ties the thermometer to one end of a string and the other end of the string is tied to a cloths pin.  When the thermometer is inserted the cloths pin is clipped to the hair above the tail.  If I can get close enough I guess I'll give it a try.  Hope I can get the thermometer back!

What Now?

We've had it very good for calving over the years with only one real mishap where we lost a cow and a calf.  Last year was tough with a new heifer calving for the first time and having twins.  That heifer, now a cow was #51.  She never nursed the calves properly and we ended up losing both of her calves after bottle feeding them for months.  This year she gave us a problem again.  She had her water bag hanging out for much longer than normal.  This was during my second cutting of hay which turned out to be a bad turn also, but I'll write about that later.  Anyway Sara came out to the hayfield to tell me that the water bag shouldn't hang more than a couple of hours.  So I called the vet and he said he'd want to know what was going on in there.  Look for a breach or a head back etc.  George and I setup the corral panel, chute and headgate.  Luckily #51 is our most gentle cow and she allowed us to walk her up to the corral and she went easily into the chute and headgate.  While she was walking I put my hand in her and could feel feet so I knew the calf was very close.  When she was in the headgate I was able to reach in further and could feel that everything felt normal, and was right and ready to go but she wasn't pushing.  I decided that I should help things along and find out if this calf was alive.  I reached in and grabbed both of the calf's front legs and pulled until my hands ached.  After my hands had stopped cramping I pulled some more.  Eventually George started helping and it wasn't long until the head was just about out.  A little pulling down rather than back and the calf slid out.  We carried the calf around to the front of the chute and let the cow out.  She took to the calf right away and all was good except we noticed that she had what appeared to be another water sack hanging at one point.  Maybe twins again, but then later I saw placenta so I didn't think much of it again.  Everything was good until after about a day we never seemed to catch the calf nursing.  Sara and I decided to try to strip some milk from the cow and so back to the corral the cow went, this time with calf in tow.  We put the calf on the cow at first but the cow kicked her back.  Then Sara tried to milk the cow but she was dry.  At that point we figured that the cow had been nursed dry so we let them go back to what they were doing.  Another 24 hours later and the calf was looking bad so we started bottle feeding.  Things went down hill quickly for the calf and eventually we lost the calf.  In the mean time it was suggested that #51 might have another twin in there that wasn't alive that could be life threatening, so back to the chute again.  This time I had to go shoulder deep to look for another calf.  No calf so we let her go again.  Once she has closed back up she'll go to the sale barn.  Too bad too because she is so gentle it would be great to have a herd of cows with her disposition.

4-H Dickinson County Fair

Last week was the Dickinson County Fair.  As usual it was a lot of fun and work for the kids.  Sara had her milk goats and Tom and George had their goat kids that were Sara's goat's kids.  They tried making them meat goats, and the rate of gain was good, but compared to a meet goat breed they were very small.  Sara also road her horse at the fair, so with all of the animals at the fair grounds, that meant lots of time at the fair grounds to keep everyone fed, watered and pens clean.  Everyone did really well, and Tom got outstanding junior for his robot arm that grabs and object and dropped it in another location.  All in all a fun and rewarding week.

Sara Running Flag

Tom's Robot

We sure can't complain about the lack of rain this year, unless you are a hay farmer.  Then you can ask when it's going to be dry enough to cut, rake and bale.  We've had more than our share of bad weather too.  Last week we had 96mph winds.  This week we had several inches of rain in a few hours.  Next week the weather according to NOAA says dry.  But they change the forecast every other day, so that hasn't been much of a help either.  My brother's cow had a heifer calf.  She looks great and appears to be doing great too.  I don't understand though why my cows are so spread out on calving.  We have 4 calves out of 10 and it's almost August.  It wouldn't be so bad if I had wanted them spread out over the year, but I'd much rather have them all dropped at one time so that I can market them all at one time.  I don't want to have to hold them all open a year just to get in cycle.  That would be crazy.  I'm sure there is some way to get things back in line but you can't change time...

Time on the farm passes pretty quickly but not so quickly that I feel like we're missing much.  We're always busy but because the family is always working together, or at least working or playing near each other, it never really feels like we're too busy for each other or to notice the little things.  Not sure if I put that exactly right, but I guess that I'd say that it's a very special opportunity to be together and to enjoy the time together.  Like the other morning when I was moving the cows with my youngest son Dan.  As we walked across the pasture we were looking at the different plants that are in the pasture.  We spent time looking at the different grasses and some of the few forbs (flowering/non-grasses) growing there.  We noticed how the insects really populate and eat the forbs/flowers and discussed how the forbs are special in the landscape.  How they add complexity to the plant community and give insects food that they wouldn't get in just a monoculture of grass and this in turn gives bird chicks concentrated access to the insects that would be far more spread out in grass if they are there at all.  I'm sure that some kids would learn about that in school some day and probably see a picture of it in a biology text book, but actually taking the time to teach by watching little black insects crawling all over and munching a black eyed susan and seeing nature working the way it was designed to work with your family as part of your everyday life is nothing short of magic.

Chicken Processing

Our first batch of chickens have been completed.  The birds looked great and except for our scalder breaking down again... we stayed ahead of schedule.  We had the Boernsen's over to help for a couple of days and it was a huge help in keeping things moving.  Sharon had been asking for some type of drying rack for the chickens so I made a new drying rack to put the chickens on to drain while the bag is placed over them.  Sharon said it worked really well so we'll keep that around and keep that in our process.  We ate one of the chickens that we just processed this weekend last night for dinner and as usual it was fantastic.  The next set of chickens will be processed in late August. 

Some Days Are Harder Than Others

What more could go wrong?  I have never damaged so much on the farm in such a short period of time than I did this past week.  It seemed like the more that went wrong, the more that kept going wrong.  I broke fence posts off, bent my tractor cab door, ran up over boulders, caught tomato cages in the bush-hog mower.  It seemed it would never end until I stopped doing farm work.  I even lost a steer from last year.  I had let the steers out into the pasture earlier in the week and I guess one got into some clover or some other legume because I found him down with what appeared to be bloat.  By the time I found him it was too late.  Hopefully those days are behind me for a while.  Today is chicken processing day!  We have about 70 to process today, and about the same tomorrow and Saturday.  If all goes well... we should move though them without issue and do what we really enjoy.  Seeing our customers and providing our customers with some fantastic tasting and healthy food.

The 10ac cover crop field finally went in.  George and I took turns planting it yesterday evening.  If it gets enough rain it should be ready to graze around the first part of September.  That should give me a little while to graze into the fall and give the wildlife something to graze as well.  We'll probably try to bale my brother's hay today.  I went over yesterday and raked it into windrows after checking to see if it was dry.  It has so much clover in it that the clover stems were still really green.  I'm hoping that a day of dry weather and a nice stiff breeze took the moisture out of it but only time will tell.  George will run the cultipacker over the 10ac field while I run the hay rack and baler over to my brothers.  Then if we're lucky will be able to bale this afternoon.

We're continuing to go from farm project to farm project at a high rate, but often unplanned schedule.  Sharon has been working what seems like non-stop with the chickens.  It's just a matter of weeks/days until the first batch of broilers will be processed.  It is amazing how fast these chickens grow.  They have moved from the top of the pasture to the bottom and are turning the corner (no pun intended) which is a pretty good distance to cover.  Sharon has combined two sizes of pullets into one pen and they're allowed to roam the pasture.  One of the pullets had decided it was a wild bird and had move to the other side of the pasture.  It didn't go in at night and just roamed and hid at night.  It wouldn't have been long until one of our many nightly predators would have found her and made her their chicken dinner, so the boys caught her and took her back to the rest of the flock.  The chickens take an amazing amount of management.  I'm not sure how Sharon keeps everything strait.

Looks like we'll finally have a dry week.  Too bad there's no hay to cut on the farm, but if I have time I'll cut hay over at my brother's place while he's out of town.  We had a calf either Saturday night or Sunday morning.  Another bull calf.  I ear tagged it this morning but wasn't able to get the band on him.  It snapped when I tried to open the band and by that the time I got another band out of my pocket he was struggling and his mama was trying to get through the single strand of high tensile between us and her.  After a couple seconds of struggling, and with Dan having high-tailed it to the truck for safety, I decided to let the calf go to mama before I found out how protective that cow could be.  I'll try again later in the day.

Friendly Type?

You never realize how much wear your equipment gets until you have something go wrong on it.  Tractor, baler, truck, even fencing.  If it is constant use, its going to break down especially doing heavy-duty work on a farm.  Yesterday evening it was a tire on the flatbed trailer.  We were going down to pickup feed for the many chickens that Sharon has going on the farm and BANG! a tire on the trailer blows.  It threw the tread before I could get it pulled off on a side road.  Sharon convinced me to leave the trailer at a farm place rather than parked in a field entrance along the highway.  She said "you would be happy to help someone who had a problem, so why not ask these people if you can leave the trailer at their place instead of off the side of the highway, they will be happy to help."  Okay, so I do it, only the place wasn't your standard farm place.  They kind of had a little business setup selling hearing aids.  Anyway we left a note in the door, dropped the trailer and left.  Then we remembered that we forgot to get the address where we left it so we went back.  When we turned onto the road where we had left the trailer we saw a car go into the farm place.  Great, we can go talk to them and let them know.  Turns out it was the granddaughter of the people who lived there, and she wasn't too pleased about me leaving the trailer.  When I introduced myself and started telling her about blowing the tire, she already had a finger to her lips and was shaking her head no...  An inquisition regarding how long I would have it there etc. ensued.  Luckily her boyfriend or husband came over and said, "well, $h*# happens" and kind of settled the matter.  So I left the trailer and have to go back this morning when the tire shops are open in the area and get back on the road.  Not sure what to expect when I go back for the trailer.

Grass Hay

We cut our grass hay.  I wish you could smell it.  It is beautiful stuff and smells just as good.  Sharon's parents were here for the weekend so her father got the opportunity to drive the tractor while George and I stacked bales on the rack.  Getting the baler setup for the first time of the year always means some strange bales.  We have several that are about 12"x12" and a couple that are about 5' long.  I assume that they'll end up going with the kids to the fair. 
We had a father and son from Illinois come by for hay today.  They are on a great father son trip to different parks like Custer National Park to see the parks by mule, and they brought their own mules!  How cool is that?  They were on their way to a park down by Ft. Dodge in IA.  That sounds like an awesome trip.

Couldn't Finish Cutting Alfalfa

I couldn't finish cutting the alfalfa yesterday evening.  The number of new of the year animals in there was just too much for me.  There were countless red-wing blackbird chicks, flocks of pheasant chicks, and even a fawn.  So I left an acre or two standing that I'll cut with the second cutting.  It's amazing the amount of wildlife that will take advantage of early standing cover.

First Cutting New Alfalfa

The sun was finally shining this afternoon, so I ran out and started cutting the 50ac alfalfa field.  The alfalfa is up to the pockets on my jeans and super thick.  Its going to make some serious hay if the weather holds.  The number of pheasant chicks in the field was pretty amazing.  I had to keep stopping to let the chicks run ahead of the tractor.  Most were the size of quail and could fly like quail, but there were some that were as small as week old chickens and they couldn't fly at all.  I never like the first cutting of hay because of all of the babies in the fields, but the hay needs to be cut so I figure that if I pay attention I can miss most of them.

Everyday it's something new.  Today when I was moving the cows I saw a pink flower in the pasture that looked like the phlox that Sharon has had in her garden.  It didn't do well in her garden but that was the starting point for determining what the plant is.  It turns out that the plant is indeed a prairie phlox which is a native of Iowa prairies.  I just love the diversity that I get to see.  The goats beard has gone to seed in the last few days also, which is a big giant puff ball of seeds, similar to the dandelion.  Since they are both in the same family I guess they are similar, except that the goats beard is about 10 times the size of a dandelion when it goes to seed. 

Pheasant

We saw our first flock of pheasant chicks today.  I was cutting along the edge of the lane and saw a few chicks jump.  They were about the size of quail.  I called to George via tractor sound code and he came down the lane to see what I needed.  We then walked into the grass and WHOOSH they all jumped!  I counted at least 10 not including the hen.  Our family gets such a rush seeing the wildlife on the farm.

Rain

I know, farmers complain when it rains and then they complain when it's dry, but that's just because there are so many things that need to happen at one time any extreme causes a problem in our "schedule".  Right now the rain is killing me.  I've got 50 acres of alfalfa that's bursting into bloom.  Even if it is a beautiful sea of purple and white, it's not quite what I had hoped for when I decided to let it grow a little longer a couple of weeks back.  The honey bees that are on the farm I'm sure are making a bumper crop of honey, but as the bloom goes on, the protein in the hay goes down.  I'm determined to cut the hay this week, maybe even tomorrow.  The beans have started coming up thanks to the rain and since I have to go the the USDA/FSA office on Monday to report the number of bean acres, I used the "down time" to GPS the acres.  Seems like it should be more but it looks like I only have 36.5 acres of beans. 

Early Vegetables

We were out putting in our last seeds yesterday and I noticed that we have 3" squash on the yellow squash plants.   The squash were started inside around the same time as the tomatoes so they had a great head start and if all goes well, we'll remember to start them early the next time too.

Bull - Down the Road

George and I loaded the bull Sunday evening.  He went into the trailer like he was ready to go for a ride!  When we dropped him off at the sale barn he unloaded just as easily as he loaded.  To bad he wasn't as good in the pasture as he was going into and coming out of the trailer.  He'll be sold today at the sale barn at noon.

Bobwhite

We've been building a couple of predator proof pens for the broiler chickens for the past few days.  Everything has gone well with the building and we've gotten much quicker at building them.  While we were moving cows today we thought we heard a bobwhite quail.  Bobwhite quail are not really a bird found this far northwest in IA.  I didn't think much about it until we were building pens in the late morning and the bobwhite started calling from right outside of the hoop building where we were making the pens.  I had the kids run to the house and get the video camera and the still camera so that we could capture the evidence that we have a bobwhite on the farm.  We never got the quail to fly so no physical proof, but we know that we heard it calling.  Honest!

Conservation - beneficials

We monitor the health of our farm by observing "beneficials."  Beneficials are animals, plants and insects that show that we are moving in a direction toward a healthy native environment.  So it was very exciting to see this morning, while I was moving the cows into their next grazing area, a hen mallard fly out of the grass.  I searched around a little and found her nest buried in the tall cool season grasses.  She has 5 eggs in her nest.  The thing that's so great about the mallard nest is that it shows that we're giving wildlife areas to nest and thrive while still utilizing the grasses for our cow/calf pairs.  The area that the mallard is nesting in was a very rough and heavily grazed area when we first bought the farm.  By maintaining good grazing patterns around this area we've been able to allow the area to fill in with grasses and still grow big bluestem and other forbs later in the year.  We'll avoid her nest and graze around her, leaving a large amount of cover for her to hide in.   Other "beneficials" that we've seen over the past couple of years are that we've increased the number of meadow larks and other prairie bird types, and we've seen sora rail on the wetlands for the past couple of springs.

Kiwanis

Sharon and I gave a presentation to the Kiwanis of Milford, IA this morning.  We really enjoyed it.  We enjoy giving tours on the farm, so we used video and pictures to give a virtual tour.  You never know if the audience was into what you are presenting but I think it went pretty well.

Vegetables are In!

Okay, so not all of the vegetables are in. We still have seeds to plant in the last row, but all of the started plants are in and look great. The water has been run for a couple of hours a day on them and we're eagerly anticipating their maturity.

Shooting the Bull

We've had our bull for a few years and for the first year he was really good. He hung back with the cows and kept to himself. But last year he started to get more used to his size and abilities and wasn't eager to be "handled" or walked anywhere and let me know by facing me when I wanted him to move anywhere. This spring he has given us some trouble. First he knocked down a panel fence and went out into the alfalfa for a while. I used the bobcat/skidloader to pressure him into the pasture and he challenged the skidloader the entire way. Not good if you figure that he challenged a loud steel object that is bigger than he is. Then the incident that sealed his fate occurred two nights ago. Sharon was going out in the pickup to do chicken chores in the outside part of the pasture and when I opened the gate to let Sharon drive through the bull charged the pickup and flew into a wild bucking fit. When she finished her chores and came back the bull was waiting and with head down he was mock charging the pickup. Sharon turned around and went across the pasture to a place where she could get out and climb over the fence, but the bull followed running, kicking, and mock charging the truck the whole way. It was pretty dark so Sharon couldn't see him but when she stopped and saw the bull had followed and was going at the pickup she was agitated. She finally sped across the pasture and back to the gate and I let her out of the pasture. After posting on a cattle forum that I belong to, everyone agrees that he needs to go, so I got him into the corral last night and that's where he'll live until he gets sent down the road which I hope to have done this week. I have to admit that he was very close to getting put down on the spot when he was giving Sharon such trouble. After, we were discussing the issue and Sharon said I wonder where the term "shooting the bull" comes from. I said that it definitively doesn't have anything to do with our situation...

The weather man and the weather still haven't lined up. I ran about 7 bales through the baler yesterday afternoon and it was so dry that the bales are dust. I quit baling and started baling again around 9:30PM once the humidity came up enough to bale. I could see lightning off to the west around midnight and finally at 2AM it started to rain. Just enough to wet the hay and stop me from finishing, but not enough to do anything any good. I'm about to run out and finish the baling before the humidity drops again. Oh yeah, I did find out that the new lights I put on the tractor this spring are enough to blow the fuse in the tractor. The fuse and holder were so hot I couldn't even hold them in my hand. I ended up running with my road lights on most of the time unless I was looking for rows. Luckily there was a moon for most of the night or it would have been even harder to avoid coming up on an unseen bale in the field. I'd better get running on the hay.

Another busy day lined up today. It's supposed to rain tonight (50% chance 40% tomorrow) and the alfalfa hay I cut several days ago is almost ready to bale. The humidity is super high this morning @ 90% so the hay will be too wet to bale until that drops late this afternoon. Then when it does dry down today it will be in the middle of the day and may be too dry, the leaves can shatter when being baled, but that is the management challenge of alfalfa hay. With the chance of rain tonight and tomorrow I can put some fertilizer on the pasture. Dry fertilizer that is left on the ground will actually turn to a gas over time unless it gets rain to convert it to nitrogen in the ground that the plants can use, so timing the rain is important to maximize the investment. I should have done it early in the spring, but things just didn't seem to work out, it's one more thing on my list of things to do. I also am taking one last load of straw to the sale barn this morning, but first I have go to down and pickup the rack that had straw on it the last time I tried to pickup the rack. I'd rather be busy than bored...

First Calf of 2010

We had our first calf of the year a couple of days ago. We were going down to plant the back 9 on Friday and noticed that #65, one of our older cows, was bagging. I called up to the house on the radio and announced that #65 was bagging, so everyone went down to watch. Bagging, which I meant is the water bag, not the udder bagging up with milk, indicates that the calf is about to be born any time and is minutes away. Geo and I continued down to plant while everyone else watched the calf get born. Everything was normal and went well. Sara checked and it is a pretty little bull calf. A couple of hours after it was born I found the calf outside of the string fence in the tall grass and took the time to check it over, ear tag it, and castrate band him. It took just a couple of minutes and while the mama cow wasn't pleased that I was messing with her new born, she didn't bust through the string to keep me away either. Next due is #64 from the looks of things. Time will tell.

Calculating Seeding Rate - Real World Farm Math 101

Our kids are home schooled, so when I came across a great math problem I decided to include the two older kids in the process. It started by reading the implement manual for the JD grain drill. As I was working my way through the manual I decided I needed to calculate the exact amount of seed being dropped by my brother's drill. My brother had said that he dropped twice the amount of seed that he had intended when he used the drill based on what the manual said, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't run out of seed or waste any seed. Each crop has a recommended planting rate based on pounds per acre, and to get the drill to drop the right amount of seed, adjustments have to be made so that the drill meters out the correct amount. The manual has recommended settings based on tire size and turns/revolutions per acre but they also recommend measuring the amount of seed dropped. To measure the seed we jacked up one side of the drill so that the wheel could be manually turned to drop seed from several seed drops with a fixed number of wheel turns. Then we used our digital scale to measure the amount. The original math we used is
10 turns from 3 drops=0.19500lbs
1 drop 10 turns=0.06500lbs
1 drop 1 turn=0.00650lbs
17 drops 1 turn=0.11050lbs
1 acre is 615 turns=67.95750lbs
This is 67.95 pounds to the acre.
But then I noticed that the tire size in the manual is not the same as the tire size on the drill so our information is WRONG!!!
Next we went back to the drawing board and decided to calculate area covered and seed dropped with tire size being a variable. Since all of our calculations were based on 10 turns/revolutions of the wheel, that was our starting point. 10 revolutions of the wheel moves the drill about 73.5 feet. The drill is 9'4" wide so doing length times width we were able to determine that in 10 revolutions of the wheel we covered .016 acres. Then multiplying by 62.5 to get to a full acre we could calculate the amount of seed dropped in an acre from the weight measurements that we made originally and yes, if we had used the original measurements with the wrong tire size we would have dropped a lot more seed than we should have. Also, doing the math also makes me think that planting with a 9'4" drill is going to take forever!

Everyday is a great day to farm but yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day to farm. Cool, sunny and a nice breeze. I finished cutting hay by noon, had lunch, then dropped the hay mower and hooked up the packer-mulcher. The packer-mulcher is made up of 3 tillage tools. It has a clod buster on the front, spring tooth in the middle, and cultipacker in the back. After disking the back 9ac I ran the packer-mulcher over the field to smooth it and get it ready for drilling seed. It looked really nice when I was done but I also noticed at the end that I had a front tire going down just as I was wrapping up. Something is down in the field that slashed the tire, so I ran the tractor up to the yard and spent the late afternoon running to town to get a new tire mounted. Today I'll try planting with my brother's drill. Something new to learn. Hopefully it's not an expensive lesson.

1st Cutting

Yesterday I finished disking the back 9ac so today I cut hay. I cut about 30ac which took me most of the day to finish. I waited until the dew burned off which was about 10AM and cut until almost 5PM. Tomorrow I have another 20ac to cut. Cutting hay makes for a long day but for me it's one of the most enjoyable things. I can't describe how enjoyable it is so I'll just say that my very best day doing tech work never came close to a day cutting hay.

Like a starter pistol going off, this week is really going to be a busy farm week. The weather is dry and the fields are just about dry enough to get back into them. I have hay to make and summer grazing to plant. I'll disk where I'm planting the cover crop/summer grazing on the back 9ac this morning and if I have time I'll cut my alfalfa hay but it probably won't get cut until tomorrow. One of the cover crop/summer grazing areas is also one of the alfalfa fields to be cut so I'll have to wait to plant that until the hay is baled. When I moved the cows this morning it is hard to imagine that some of the cows can get any bigger or their udder's get any fuller. They look like they could calve any minute but nothing yet. I think we'll try to move the calving forward a little for next year if we can now that we've got the cows calving at random times.

Farm Excitement - Bull!

The boys and I came home from town this afternoon and noticed a large black object in the alfalfa field. That's unusual! George said "It's the bull!" I said that I didn't think so but grabbing the binoculars out of the farm truck which proved George right... again. My first thought was I have a bull laying down in a field of alfalfa and that isn't a good sign. Bloat is a real concern with ruminants eating green legumes. Green legumes build acid in ruminant stomachs that produce gas bubbles which cattle can't pass. As the legumes continue to produce gas bubbles their stomach eventually crowds out everything inside of their abdomen and they go down for the count and eventually death. While we were formulating a plan the bull got up and started walking toward the paddock where he had escaped. That was a good sign and so a plan hatched to use the bobcat skid-loader to persuade the bull to go though one of the gates into the pasture or back into the paddock. After trying to show he was boss which didn't really work against the skid-loader, the bull eventually ended up going through the main gate into the pasture. Tomorrow I'll get some step-in posts and run electric along the cattle panel that he's figured out he can overpower and then push him back into the paddock with the steers. Hopefully that process goes without a hitch. I don't need that type of excitement.

The rain is back this week and has put planting on hold. The weather has made it tough to get our field work done which turned out to be a good thing since we didn't get our vegetables in because we had a freeze warning and frost this past weekend. On Sunday I noticed that cow #64 had "stuff" hanging from her indicating that she probably dropped her mucus plug. Gross sounding? Well, it looks kinda gross too but that's the process a cow goes through before giving birth. Since the plug can be dropped long before the actual birth, I figure that she'll give birth sometime over the next couple of weeks. Things should start getting pretty exciting around here as soon as the weather clears up and the fields dry. I'll have to complete my field work so that I can plant my cover crop/summer forage and put the vegetables in right away. I also have to take a cutting of hay off of the fields that are going into beans in time to allow the hay to dry before the beans can go in. Lots to do... once the sun shines for a while.

Why does a cow go under a fence? Because the grass is greener on the other side, and when you're doing rotational grazing the grass is always greener on the other side. So just at sunset last night George happened to notice a cow outside of the grazing paddock. The other observation we've come to believe in is that animals never seem to get out when the weather is warm and sunny. Last night was cold and rainy. So when Geo made his announcement everybody bundled up to go out and pile into our pickups to help the cow back in. Cows have what are called flight zones that surround their bodies. Flight zones are areas that when invaded by what they perceive as a predator cause them to move away from the predator. As a prey animal they have the instinct to run rather than fight so moving cattle generally entails understanding the cows flight zones and working with them. A cow that's scared has really big flight zones and can be unpredictable and is just the opposite of a contented cow. A cow that is away from its herd, outside of a fence, and approached by a human is generally a scared cow. That meant that slow and steady with wide turns going in and out of the flight zones was required. After a little bit of running on the cows part she was slowly guided back into the portable electric fence area. Geo, Tom and Dan stood as a human wall to keep her from going West away from the fence opening and all was good again once she was in. Then we wrapped everything up by moving all of the cows into their next paddock to join the wayward cow. Just when we finished it started to rain and with a 30mph wind and temps in the 40's we were happy to be in too.

Burn

Today we burned off a field that has been fallow for several years.  It was a corn field that we let grow weeds and grasses for wildlife.  This year our plan is to plant a complex mix of cover crops to build the soil and feed our cattle over the slow pasture growth period during the summer.  The cover crops will also give wildlife and bugs food and shelter, at the same time it amends and feeds the soil.  There was so much plant matter on top of the soil that was oxidizing rather than decomposing we decided to plow it down.  When that didn't work because the plant matter bound the plow up it was decided to burn the field off.  It went very well.

High Tunnel

We received our high tunnel yesterday.  They delivered mine and a couple of others for farms in the county here yesterday so I delivered the others to two other farms yesterday as well.  The pallets that the high tunnels came on where way too small for the load but I managed to get them off of the semi, on to my trailer, and out to the farms with only one box opening up.  And the box that opened was mine, so it wasn't too bad.  I did have the bobcat/skidloader breakdown while I was in the process of unloading one of the high tunnels - Conked out just as I was trying to pull a pallet off of the trailer out at Dennis' farm.  I thought I would have to crawl out of a window on the skidloader because the arms were blocking the door but was able to get it running enough to get out.  After a run to the parts store for a new filter I was back "off schedule" as Dennis said and wrapped up the deliveries.  I don't think we'll get started building our high tunnel until later in the summer because of the time constraints but this will be a great learning opportunity and will share our progress with everyone through our blog and website. 

Management

When you raise animals without confinement there are many more variables that we contend with.  Weather, stress, light, and other environmental changes all change the way animals perform.  Sharon moved the chickens to the egg mobile on pasture, and while the eggs are again at their finest, the changes have caused the chickens to change their production and their activities.  They're breaking more eggs in the box and laying less.  Sharon is investigating, and losing sleep over, ways to mitigate these changes and hopes to make some changes to the next boxes soon.  I've move the cattle out to areas of the farm that haven't been grazed in probably 10 years and at the same time I'm experimenting with stock density.  I can experiment now in early spring because the pasture grasses will actually get ahead of my ability to have the cattle graze it, but once summer temps move in, the pasture growth will slow and overgrazing any area can cause that area to stop producing for the year or more.  I've put 10 pregnant cows into an area about 1/20th of an acre.  One day I had them on the 1/20th for 24 hours.  Then I tried the same size area for about 14 hours.  The idea is to maximize the the cattle's grass intake and optimize the grass utilization without sacrificing the grasses ability regrow.  A grass plant that has been severely bitten will take longer to regrow - like cutting your grass if you cut it too short it will "stunt" the lawn - the same type of thing happens with grazed pasture.  But with grazed pasture the cattle create and are impacted by many variables.  Cattle don't like to graze grass that has been soiled by cattle, so once the ground has is fouled with cattle manure and urine they slow down their grazing.  That's good for the grass but bad for cattle performance.  My next experiment will be to cut their area in half yet again and move them to see how long it takes for them to slow their grazing due to fouling.  I have been considering purchasing a GPS that will allow me to calculate area and to calculate grazing areas better ultimately allowing me to setup a grazing plan once I'm back in the pasture.

Started the day off by making someone's morning less that ideal.  I dropped a rack of large rounds off at the sale barn this morning for this morning's sale.  Unfortunately I pulled the hay rack into a very soft part of their parking area.  The guy that owns the sale barn wasn't too happy with me.  I'm guessing that he won't work to hard to sell my straw today...  Oh well, time to go move the cows.  It's beautiful with the cows.  I could hang out down by the wetlands with them all day but I guess I've got other things that need to get done.

Asparagus

I cultivated the asparagus yesterday and today.  It is a joy to cultivate the asparagus.  Not only because the asparagus is doing so well, but also because it mixes manual processes with tractor work.  Because we planted the asparagus in a disked alfalfa field, the alfalfa bounced back shortly after disking and is still active which hides the asparagus.  We flag two rows of asparagus before running the cultivator.  Flagging gives plenty of time to enjoy the sites, sounds, smells and warm feeling of spring coming into bloom.  Then its into the tractor to cultivate out the weeds and alfalfa for a couple of passes before pulling the flags and flagging the next two rows.  Since we don't use herbicides it is a yearly battle for domination.  Weeds and alfalfa grow along with the asparagus, and we push back against the weeds and alfalfa.  It's never about winning or losing, its simply a matter of making sure that the asparagus has enough room to grow without being overwhelmed by alfalfa and weeds so that we can get a harvest.  This year is the second year for the asparagus and we'll let it grow for one more year before we harvest it.  We're excited about next years asparagus!

Yesterday was the day to finally move the animals to their pasture homes. 
First the chickens - Sharon manages all of the operations that involve chickens, so if I sound like these are processes I have come up with I am only describing processes that she's developed. Friday night the kids caught the chickens in their deep bedding barn and moved them out into the "egg mobile".  The reason that it's best to do it at night is two fold.  First is that at night, like most birds, they perch/roost for safety and it's easy to catch them when they roost.  Second is that the birds will get into their new home and figure out their pecking order and roost order at night and in the morning while they move to their new pasture home.  Usually the first week or two after the chickens are put on pasture they have to be manually put back into the egg mobile at sunset until they learn that it's better to roost in the safety of the egg mobile rather than on the running gear and wheels of the egg mobile where they would be easy pickings for the local predators.  But last night Sharon came back from checking on the chickens and announced that they all went into the egg mobile by themselves.  That is huge!  I've never liked wrangling chickens in the dark and vowed this year I wouldn't be a chicken wrangler.  It looks like this year no one will have to be nighttime chicken wranglers. 

Next came the cattle - The bull and steers were separated from the cows, and the cows were let out onto the pasture.  We'll be grazing them outside of the fenced in pasture area using single strand of electric twine.  When we were carrying water across the pasture for the chickens the cows thought that we were carrying something they wanted, so they started to follow our pickup.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity to lure cattle rather than push cattle, we led them across the pasture and down some ally ways that we built to get them outside of the pasture.  They were kicking up their heals and running at full cow speed to keep up with our pickup.  It's a joy to watch the cows run and hop around like calves.  They moved right down where we wanted them and have started their work turning sunlight into calves and milk, and clearing the cool season grasses so that wildlife will have the prairie grasses in the fall.
That left the chicks which were moved to the deep bedding barn and the goats to the pasture.  It made for some long days but we enjoyed each others company and enjoyed the beautiful spring weather on the farm.

Maybe I started a little early this year based on the amount of moisture in the ground, but since we've been getting rain every week I figured I'd wait until it was dry "enough" and give it a try.  It was a little slick, but I've got my vegetable beds plowed into the alfalfa field.  I've walked around the farm the over the past few days to see how things are coming up.  The new alfalfa looks good but something is living in the middle of the field digging some huge holes and leaving very impressive dirt hills.  I'm sure that when we're cutting hay it will be a shock every time we drive up over one of these mounds hidden in the alfalfa stand.  The holes look like they've been made by a ground hog (wood chuck), but they are kind of unusual around here.  Not that we haven't seen them on the farm, but I think we've seen one on our farm in a decade.  I looked over the pasture yesterday.  It looks like I have a good stand of alfalfa coming up in the brome from the frost seeding.  I'm not an expert on small alfalfa so I pulled some up and took it along with some white clover up to the house for closer study.  Small alfalfa looks like sorrel and really I can't tell the difference.  So as a last test I tasted it.  It wasn't sour like sorrel so I'm assuming it's alfalfa.  I guess I'll know better in a few weeks when it has had time to get more mature.  I also walked along the field break that runs the west side of the pasture.  There are two rows of shrub/trees and a row of evergreen cedar trees.  What a mess.  I'm down to one row of shrub/trees and a about a half row of cedars.  If I was intending to grow thistles it would be a huge success.  I guess I'll disk out the first row of what used to be tree/shrub and in between the other trees and put down oats in an effort to smother out the thistle.  Then I'll put in a row new of trees next spring and go for another more permanent grass between all of the trees.  I'm also short on blue spruce trees as part of the "living snow fence" that runs down the lane.  I'd have to say that when I had the idea of running native fruit and nut bearing trees and evergreens a half mile from the north end of the farm to the south end of the farm I never imagined that I'd have such a struggle with keeping them going and keeping the weeds in check.  Hind sight being what it is and knowing what I know now I should have known that when I had to smother out the alfalfa around the trees it would have created a break in the soil which created the opportunity for other plants to jump in.  Any future trees should be incorporated into a more complex environment that can live in sync with the trees.

Winter and Fences

Last week Sharon and I walked around the pasture in the evening just enjoying the absence of snow and seeing what wildlife we might encounter.  It was cool but not cold, and we got to enjoy watching two pairs of geese land on one of our wetlands.  One pair literally landed by going right over our heads close enough to hear their breath as they flapped their wings.  It was awesome.  But let me digress.  Earlier in the week I was walking the paddock up by the house and noticed that a couple of the steel T-posts had been pulled down by the snow and ice.  They were under a tree which I guess meant that the snow and ice falling from the tree little by little shoved the barbed wire down with such force that it pulled the T-posts down about twelve inches into the ground.  Back to the pasture walk.  As we walked around the pasture I checked the fence for deer strikes.  The pasture fence is all high-tensile with SunGUARD fiberglass line posts.  We've had deer strike the fence before and it pulls the high-tensile wire out of position.  No breaks because the posts and wire flex but they can spread the wires wide enough that a cow might try to walk through.  So as we walked the pasture I kept checking to make sure the wire was in place.  When we got to the back of the pasture I noticed that the top wire was kind of loose but still in the correct position and the lower wires were tight.  Then I noticed a wire out of place so I walked over to check it out.  Sure enough the stainless steel clip that one of the wires attaches to was bent.  We thought deer strike, but then we noticed something strange.  About half a dozen or more posts were only about waist high!  Like the T-posts the fiberglass posts were pulled down about a foot into the ground.  These posts aren't under any trees and run pretty much even with the rest of the posts on that part of the pasture.  That's the first time since we've been out here that I've ever seen this.  I assume that the snow was so deep and hard that it put enough pressure on the fence wires and posts to push them down until the wire kept them from going any deeper.  If you've ever driven fence posts with a post pounder you know what an amazing force it must be to push these posts into the ground that far.  And into frozen ground at that!  Now I have to try pulling out the fiberglass posts without breaking them.  More learning to be done.

Early Sprouts?

I'm not sure why, but this year our plants have germinated a few days earlier than last year.  The first to pop-up were the cucumbers, but then the roma tomatoes were just a couple of days behind.  That's 2 1/2 days for the cucumbers and 4 days for the romas.  Sharon thinks that it's because I've kept the corn stove cranked up and the temps have been in the high 70's - 80 F in the area we're germinating the plants.  She may be right.  Last year when we started the plants it was cold outside and we had temps near freezing during the day.  This year it's been in the 50's and the nights have now barely dipped to freezing.  The next change will be hardening the plants.  This year the basement is much warmer than usual, which I assume means that the plants will not slow down as much which made for really hardy plants last year.  I figure that I can keep the temps down by opening windows if needed but with temps outside so warm it might be warmer outside than down in the basement.  I guess I get to learn new things every time we run into something that is different.  I guess this is why old farmers can say they've been farming for 50 years and can only remember a couple of "normal" years...

Better Late than Never

We finally got our vegetable seeds sown this weekend.  It was practically stress free and Sara has taken over as lead planter.  She has the disposition to do the tedious work required to plant hundreds of seeds one at a time carefully into the germination cells.  Based on my notes from last year we should start seeing our sprouts in about 7 - 10 days. 

Frost Seeding

I frost seeded some alfalfa the other morning.  The snow is just about off all of the fields and while the nights are below freezing the days are above freezing which allowed me to get the tractor out into the field.  Frost seeding is supposed to take advantage of the freeze thaw action that happens between day and night temps.  When the soil freezes with moisture in it, it actually stands up and creates small pockets in the soil.  The seed that I sowed are supposed to then fall down into the cracks and pockets created by the freezing and when it thaws the soil should cover the seed.  That's the way it's supposed to work anyway.  We'll see how it turns out.  I'm trying to get away from using fertilizer but grass pastures need nitrogen so sowing a legume like alfalfa or clover that fixes nitrogen into the soil should add to the manure that the cows leave behind.  That and since I had a couple of bags of alfalfa left over from last years planting I thought I'd give it a try.  Only time will tell.

The pace is picking up and I'm falling behind.  I have some frost planting I'd like to do in the pasture, the vegetable seeds need to be germinated and I wanted to take some straw to the sale barn this weekend since it's calving season and I thought I could get a good price for it.  But when I tried to move the hay rack after taking it to town to weigh it I noticed the hitch tongue had a problem.  Pulling on part of the hitch tongue I was able to break it by hand.  Good thing I didn't take it to town loaded with straw!  I hooked up the rack and took it to my brother's.  Well almost.  On my way the hairpin clip must have popped out of the hitch pin and the hay rack unhooked itself as I was going down the road.  I noticed a flash of movement in the mirror and then watched the hay rack head off into the ditch and get hung up in a fence.  Luckily it went South.  If it had gone north it would have gone down into a school yard!  Miles of open farm land and it comes undone in Lake Park.  It wasn't a big deal to pull it out and hook back up, but it is just another setback in my schedule.  I keep trying to tell myself that we're not in control.  Today it's pulling the water pump off of my truck that leaked on the way home yesterday evening...

Goat Kids -- For Sale

Sara's Toggenburg goats had kids over the weekend.  One goat had twin females and the other had triplet bucks.  They all look very healthy and were jumping around after the first day.  Sara is bottle feeding the kids so she first has to milk the mama goats and then feed the kids with the milk that she just stripped.  It takes a long time, but Sara has always like to work with her animals regardless of how long it seems to take.  She really has a passion for her animals.  You can see a few pictures of the goats on our website here.

Vegetable Seed Orders -- DONE!

Whew!  It took most of the day but it's finally done.  The orders for this years vegetable seeds are in.  Next steps are to receive them, sort them, and start them.  We have about 10 days until we'll have plant trays strategically located all over the warmest spots in the house to facilitate vegetable plant germination.  Ready or not!

Geese and Vegetables

The weather is finally above freezing but we can already tell that the season is "behind schedule".  We usually see our first flocks of geese going over the farm by about Valentines day.  This year Tom saw geese on Friday of last week and I saw two ducks the same day.  I'm not sure if that will equate to a two - three week delay in everything else, but I kind of hope so.  This year has been very difficult to get our vegetable plans in order.  We learned last year that vegetables are a time killer and we thought about really scaling back.  They compete with everything else that goes on which I guess one would assume, but as with most things in life and farming, you have to choose what your priorities are.  So when we have hay on the ground or hay that needs to be cut, the window to get it done is set and the clock starts ticking.  The old saying make hay while the sun is shining is true to a point.  Grass hay can be made into bales at any time once it's dry, but alfalfa hay that we grow has to be made while the sun is shining but with enough humidity to keep the leaves from shattering, so not too dry, but not too much humidity or it will mold, and no rain on it or it will lose its quality etc.  But I digress...  Anyway, if it comes down to making hay, processing chickens, or picking vegetables, the vegetables lose.  So vegetable crop management is key.  If we can plant items that take less human capital, in a way that keeps us from having to "tend" the plants as much, we can then maximize our produce efficiency.  Sounds easy enough, but since we don't use herbicides, if I plant too much of the wrong stuff the wrong way, we'll be out pulling weeds, and when you have acres of vegetables, pulling weeds is not an efficient use of time.  Today is the deadline for getting the plants ordered to make our March 15 date for starting our plants indoors.  Interesting that I had all winter to get this done and today I'm running up against a deadline...