Aftermath of flood.

When the flash flood came we only got 1.25" of rain but three miles up the creek the neighbor got over four inches in a short time.  The creek started going down in the middle of the after noon.  The County road crew said the water went over Fairpoint Road in 22 different places.  This is a twelve mile stretch.  The next day the county was out with gravel trucks hauling gravel to the bad spots.  We live only three miles west of the Fairpoint Road and didn't get much rain. That's normal for us to get less rain.

I went down to the creek crossing north of the house and the flood had washed a dead tree and some debris right in the middle of the trail.

Since it wasn't so muddy here I have started to cut some hay and get some baled.  Where I cut was a hilltop and side hill where I feed the cows and the sheep through the winter.  There is sweet clover mixed into the crested wheatgrass so it does put up some hay.

As you can see the bales are not very thick, but at least we are getting some hay up.  I have started cutting down on the bottoms along the creek where it didn't flood and the hay is quite thick.   It has been rained on twice. Two nights ago with 0.30" and last night with 0.50".  Quite sever thunderstorms.  Usually someone gets hail out of these storms.  A week ago Ryan had a hail storm hit his alfalfa field.  I was adding up the moisture since June 1 and the total is 6.50" of rainfall.  The whole month of May we got about 0.75".  So we were quite dry but now we are soaked up and ready for some sunshine.

Tammy went up to look at the cows and sheep the other day.  We had moved the cows to a pasture that is full of sweet clover this year..

Sweet clover is alright feed but you need to graze it when it tender and growing.  Once it goes to seed and starts to dry up it feed value drops.  Then it becomes more of a fire hazard for prairie fires.

The cows are grazing in a lake bed.  The sweet clover hill top is in the distance, but they like the tender grass in the lake bed.  Reminds me of watching moose graze in the swamps with just their antlers sticking out.

The pasture is good, but this ewe is laying down with her lambs. So they are not standing looking out through the grass.  Years like this a person needs more animals to graze all the extra grass, but we will just have it for next year.  Some years all the grazing the animals have is last years grass.

Hope to get busy haying in the near future.