The weather is not cooperating well to make dry hay, and it is driving me slightly crazy. My mind is programmed that we should be making hay, and I find it difficult to work on something else because my focus is making hay. I found myself a bit stir crazy on Sunday wondering what to do. I always can clean, paint or start getting ready for the fair but that wasn’t on my mind. I didn’t want to cut hay because I did that last Sunday and it took all week to get it dry enough to bale. Predictions are heavy rains Monday and Tuesday, so we planned to wait until that passed. We couldn’t get rain when we needed it earlier this spring but now, we need to shut off and we can’t fix that either. This weather forces people to wrap more hay. The white plastic you see hay wrapped in allows you to bale your hay with higher moisture and the process of wrapping it ensiles the hay. Wrapping hay isn’t cheap but in weather like this it is the best option. People keep asking when I am going to retire and if yesterday was an indication of what retirement will be like then I am not ready for that!
The weeds absolutely love this weather, and we have our work cut out for ourselves to get rid of things before the Open House. The rain hasn’t helped because we can’t get on the land when we should. We will do our best, but we haven’t figured out a way to control the weather here either. Our forage plots are growing back nicely, and we will have some excellent second cut to harvest in the next couple of weeks.
I have pulled my bulls, and breeding is over for this year. I was planning to leave them for another week but when I wasn’t haying, I thought I might as well do that job. I have had some inquiries about heifers already and have been trying to get out and get some photos, but it isn’t easy when they are all huddled up kicking and swatting flies. I was able to get a few this weekend but will keep trying.
My next job is to sort off a cow / calf pair and choose a couple of yearling heifers to prepare for the fair. It is an exciting year for our Fair – we are celebrating 125 years! That is such an accomplishment. Join in on the fun, August 14 – 16. If you are interested in entering, you can find out all the details at www.emofair.com.
Saturday morning, I went with my mom to Rocky Ridge Fruit Farm. We both picked a pail of strawberries. It took about five minutes to get a pail. I am so happy that we have this farm in the area. There was an excellent number of people, and I wish I had taken a picture to see all the pickers out in the patch. If you know me at all, you will know that I don’t eat fruit or berries, but it was fun picking. My mom had picked a week ago but we thought we would go get a few more. If you haven’t been there, you are missing out, I think the next season will be raspberries so check them out if you are interested!
