Monday, August 16, 2010

How time flies

Since I lasted posted, we were in another pasture, the County Fair was two weeks away and we were just starting another steamy stretch of sultry weather here in the Driftless Region. Well I'm here to say that I think we're out of that weather pattern, the County Fair has concluded for another year and the cattle are in another pasture.

The rain this summer has been record breaking. If we didn't break the record for rain during the summer, we soon will. The Kickapoo never dropped down this summer, so the boys and I never made an excuse to get away from work to fish. The mosquitoes has been ferocious, so even though I'll continue fencing this evening, I will go equipped with spray, long sleeve shirt and longer hat in tow.

Going back to the paddocks, we experienced another gully washer of a rain in the West pasture. However, unlike the South pasture, which has water descend on it from a myriad of directions, the water here came from the corn field and went down the ditch. Very little damage.

The real damage has been where the cattle stand during the hot summer sun, the ground is so saturated that within hours, we go from pasture to mud hole. I may have to look at reseeding, but when I went back down to the South pasture, most paddocks are coming back nicely. I may well let the South rest through the fall, but its all dependent on how fast the Sorghum Sudangrass grows. I frankly have not been very impressed with its stocking rate. Perhaps some nitrogen would have boosted the growth, but I'm not a big fan of inputs and besides, I still have five weeks for the field to grow in order for the stockers to fill up on that (except for the two week window around the kill frost). I will most likely fence around what will be a will be barren corn silage field so that the cows and this year's calves can eat. There again isn't much feed in the field, but toward the end, I will start to process some forage in order that the cows can fill it up with manure for next spring's wheat crop.

Today, I hope to finish some more fencing on the other side of the farm so as cattle arrive there, they won't be uninvited guests in the neighbor's beans. Here's to a post sooner.