We spent  the last of the week in Huron at the South Dakota State Fair.  It was over 100 degrees on Thursday.  I watched the Red Angus show that afternoon.  It was hot for the animals but the fans in the beef barn kept the air moving.  Tammy went to help serve lamb spread on a cracker.   The Governor of South Dakota Dennis Daugard stopped by to eat lamb on a cracker and liked it.

Saturday I helped the South Dakota Farmers Union serve a noon meal in a tent on the fair grounds.  We served around 1300 people, for a free will offering going to Make A Wish.  Tammy helped with the beef cook-off. We got home Saturday night and discovered that Peaches our dog had gotten into a porcupine.  She had about fifteen quills in her muzzle.  We tried to hold her down and managed to get 9 quills out, but couldn't get the rest out.  So we took her to a vet on Sunday.

I started cutting sorghum on Monday.  It has grown up quite tall.

The cutting was kind of slow going.  I did get all forty acres done in one day.

Amazing growth

I have been wanting to get these two pictures on the same page.  The rain we have had in the last three weeks has been phenomenal.  The end of July we were thinking about calling the crop adjuster.  This was my forage sorghum before the rains.

Then we had five inches of rain over a three week period.  It has made haying a little difficult.  The hay won't dry out so it can be baled.  We now get a look at what eastern South Dakota producers put up with for their haying.  The high humidity and dewy mornings.  This is my sorghum field now.

Pretty amazing.  The growth in three weeks.

We have been pulling bulls out of the pastures.  This way we have an end date for calving next spring.

I cut some second crop alfalfa here on the creek last week.  It was some of the best alfalfa I have ever cut.  I am still waiting for the hay to dry out.  I turned it over with the rake this afternoon to help it dry out some.

We will be going to the State Fair this coming week.  Hope to get the alfalfa square baled and in the barn before we go.

It has been nine days since the last blog and we have had over two inches of rain.  This unsettled weather pattern just keeps us cloudy and foggy in the mornings.  It doesn't get  but about 80 degrees during the day and rains somewhere in the afternoon or evening.

The Sturgis motorcycle rally is over.  I guess they had a big crowd.  I haven't been to Sturgis in three weeks, so I don't know much what goes on.  The stop signs and traffic lights in Sturgis every block is too much for me to handle.  Tammy went to help the Cattlewomen promote beef west of Belle Fouche on the Wednesday of the Rally and went through Sturgis early and it took her 30 minutes to get through.

This is me standing in my field of sorghum before the rains started.  This is about as good as it was anywhere in the field.  I was thinking of calling the insurance adjuster to come and look before I turned the sheep in,
Now the sorghum has grown to about waist high and is a lush green.

I did manage to cut some hay and bale some little square bales.  Then the next day we loaded the bales on Ryan's trailer and unloaded the bales in the barn so they will be dry and ready to feed next calving season when we have cows in the barn.

This is me picking up little square bales with the hay head on the loader to gather them and bring them to the trailer where Ryan and Tammy stack them. The video is running at fast speed.  I don't go this fast.  Here I dump the bales on the load.

We ended up with about 180 bales in the barn.  This is Ryan holding his bale hook at the ready for the next load of bales coming in.

What a little rain won't do.

At the last blog we were worrying about starting a fire when we were haying.  A sickle section or guard striking a rock could cause a spark and ignite a fire.  With a strong wind blowing this could devastate the prairie in a few minutes.  A neighbor had this happen next to our pasture.  The fire burnt about fifteen posts.

Since this photo it has started to rain.  It is an unusual time for us to have a rainy spell, but we welcome rain at any time.  In the last ten days we have had 4.81' of rain.  The first rain ten days ago was 2.36".  It filled the cracks in the ground and softened the soil in the bottoms of the dry creek beds.  According to radar more rain fell just north of us by the second day the creek had risen.  

Tammy and I went out to check the cows that were enjoying the softened grass and the cooler temperatures.

On the way back we crossed Softwater creek and saw that it was running.  Kind of strange for this time of year.

During the cooler weather Ryan came over and we got the bulls out of the pasture with the yearling heifers.  That way the heifers will calve for only sixty days and be done.  The bulls were not impressed that they had to leave their heifers.  With a little trouble we finally got them out.

The cooler damp weather had put a stop to our hay making.  We have been stacking bales.  Then we took apart our square baler to fix the plunger and adjust the clearances.  We had to order some bushings so it is down for a few days.  With the additional rain at this time we could get a lot of second crop alfalfa.  We like to put this second crop up in little square bales for ease of handling in the barns.

I wanted to include a picture of how much my sorghum field has improved with the recent  rain, but with another 1.53" of rain last night this is what is greeting us this morning.

This is how the creek looked from our front yard of the house.  The creek was bone dry two weeks ago and now it has been bank full twice in the last ten days.  I may make it up to the sorghum field and get a picture this afternoon.

Busy haying

We have been busy haying since the 20th of June.  It has been pretty steady.  The hay crop is pretty short, but better than last year.  I run the hydroswing that cuts and windrows the hay in one pass.

Tammy has been raking most everything together.  She rolls two windrows together to make one.  Then the baler has to make only on trip down the field to bale two windrows.

I figured up the bale counts for the last three years over here at Fairpoint.  2011 was an exceptional year for hay.  We baled 619 bales in 2011.  Last year 2012 was one of the poorest hay years and we baled 61 bales.  This year we have baled 139 with a chance at baling some sorghum later.

My sorghum crop looked pretty bleak a day ago.  Here I am out admiring it.

But last night we had 2.30" of rain.  So hopefully this rain will perk it up.

Earlier in the month the yucca plants were really pretty.  They were in full bloom on the hillside up by the mail box.

For those of you who haven't seen a yucca plant up close here is a picture.  The leaves are actually spines, like a long knitting needle.

We will keep you posted on the progress of our sorghum crop with the recent rain.  We should be about done haying by early next week.

Grass is green

The grass looks green and lush right now.  Been doing some farming between showers.  Got the forage sorghum planted a couple of weeks ago and it is coming up.  Decided to plant another thirty acres of millet in a field that was supposed to be alfalfa, but must have died during last years drought.

We brought the cows in to brand and vaccinate the calves.  Looks really green.

Our neighbor Joe came over to help us brand.  We have a herd in transition.  There are calve born in February, March, April, May and June.  Next year they will be born in April and May for a more uniform set of calves.

Tammy does the casterating with the mother cows await their babies to return.  There was lots of bull calves in this herd.  Don't know the exact numbers, but must have been pushing 70%.  Really unusual, more often it is closer to 50/50.  Half bulls and half heifers.

We moved some of Ryan's cows to a different pasture.  The grass in the road ditch is really tall.  The pasture grasses are good and thick, just not as tall as some years.

The water situation in this pasture is rather bleak.  This is a picture on the dam.  Normally this picture would be all water, starting from my toes to way across.  About a foot of water in the very bottom.  Fortunately there is a hydrant so we moved a tank in.

The other day Ryan was going past his mail box and caught two unusual visitors passing through.  He was able to get their picture on his phone.

It is a picture of two cow elk.  At least they don't have antlers.  While it is not uncommon to see elk passing though, seldom do you get a picture as they are usually on the move.  About every year sometime one of us will see an elk somewhere out here.  Usually it is young bulls looking for new territory.

The last two weeks of May we got 4.36" of rain.  Everything got soaked up good and we had real mud for the first time in a couple of years.  We had lambs that needed docked and turned out to pasture.  The weather stayed so wet and cool and damp that we just turned them out without being docked.  Something that hasn't happened on this place.  We were down to 4 bales of good sheep hay left when we finally quit feeding.

Here Tammy and I are trying to lead the grandkids through the mud so we can chase ewes and lambs to pasture.

Logan and I chasing pairs through the water and ruts to get to pasture.

Here Ryan and Kole (age 1 yr 6mos) hold the ewes up till they find their lamb.  Or the lamb finds the ewe.  The ewes get on fresh pasture and like to just run and eat fresh grass as fast as they can and forget their lamb.  So Ryan got in front of them and held them up till the lambs found their mothers.

Then on cool day that was dry and was supposed to not rain we got the big bunch of ewes and lambs in and docked them. The kids and neighbor kids are the lamb catchers and the holders hold the lambs while their tails are cut off and casterated.  Then lastly I put our brand on them, which is a big red B on the shoulder.  In this video Tammy is using a Burdizzio to pre-crush the tail to cut down on bleeding of the bigger lambs.

 

Ryan got his cows syncronized and bred last week .  We moved his cows to summer pasture.  Then today we sorted our cows and put bulls with them and got them taken to summer pastures.  Water is low in all pastures.  One pasture we rent we will have to start pumping water right away.  We are lucky that we don't have to haul water, but still have to go down and start the gas engine and have it pump for and hour.

Normally the water should be up near the trees on the dam dyke.  Where I took the picture from I would be under water.  We do have a hydrant in this pasture, but still needs to be checked, so more daily chores.

Our well on the "gumbo" still continues to add pipelines.  One guy is hooking on this week and two more are talking about hooking on.