Here we are halfway through the month of June, and I am not finished planting. We have a couple of alfalfa trials that are ready to go in but when they are predicting a heavy rain, I question if we shouldn’t wait until that is behind us. Small seed will float away quite easily. We were unable to plant it last week even though it had dried up a fair bit it was still sticky enough that it would have been sticking to our plates on the seed drill. They are both fertility trials so once we plant, we need time to spread the fertilizer by hand on each plot. Other than that, we will put in some demo blocks behind some of the trials just to keep the weeds down. We have hopes of doing our first cut forages this week but like I said the weather forecast doesn’t look great. I accessed our forages trials last week and many were not worthy of cutting so we ran the lawn mower over them. We had a lot of winter kill and our 1st cut yields will not be setting any records. Then to top it all off, I had high hopes of our hops being the crop that would get us through the season, but they have a huge insect issue, and I am still uncertain if I will be able to pull them through the season. I have something coming in to spray but I really don’t know if it will be soon enough. So, I really think we should just re-start 2024 and hope things get back to normal.
The Northwest Outdoor Ag Expo plans are really coming together. The committee that is spread across the entire province meets every 2 weeks. Registrations are coming in and some of our American friends that are attending are planning to turn it into a camping trip. Part of the compaction demonstration requires dry and wet soil. So, the discussion was what if it is dry? Hard to imagine on a year such as this. I secured 15 totes and if it is looking like it is going to be dry, we will drill holes in them and water the area 2 weeks prior to the event. I hope we need to do that! Please register at: https://membership.ontariosoilcrop.org/event/northwest-international-ag-expo/
It is going to be a really great event and Rainy River District is extremely lucky to have been asked to host!
I tackled many jobs over the weekend in between rain showers. My horse finally got his hooves trimmed, vaccinated and dewormed. He is looking forward to being reunited with his bull friends. My pumpkin patch is in, but I don’t have high hopes for it this year since it is late. I had to fence my butcher animals out of the patch as they thought it was a great place to jump and rub their white faces into the pile of black dirt. I found a couple more painting projects that I would like to accomplish before we get busy making hay, but painting require good weather and we are lacking that.
It is a busy week of graduations! My vet cousin’s son is graduation from Grade 8 and my oldest niece is graduation from Grade 12! Guess if it is wet, I won’t be missing out on much and I can enjoy celebrating with everyone!
