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.