What! The middle of September has arrived. It certainly seems like time is moving quickly and maybe more so as the days get shorter and we all try to pack as much possible into our days. The sunshine really helps with everyone’s mood and as well the long to-do lists! The Rainy River Cattlemen’s as hoping for a long, open fall as they are trying to re-build the Stratton Sale Barn. It is looking like they are going to work as hard as they can in between sales this fall to get as much done as possible. The biggest issue is the lack of pens since our fire last fall. The plan is to have some new penning for our September 26 Sale. We will likely be calling on some volunteers to help make this all happen so watch for an email from me or check out the Rainy River Cattlemen’s Facebook page. You can also get in touch with Louis Bujold or James Gibson.
Besides getting our manure out I will be bringing all my cows and calves’ home this weekend to weigh calves and try and make some decision on who is staying and who is going. Truth is we have very few heifers so the decision might not be so difficult. The girls are hinting they might like to take a 4-H steer so that will be the bigger decision. I have mixed feelings on that. We will see.
Last week was a great week at EARS. We finished combining our canola trials. The stocks were still quite green, so I dreaded them plugging our machine, but things went through quite well. We were unable to measure straw yields because the course stocks kept knocking our scale off. We haven’t started processing any of our samples yet. This will happen but we need to get the outside jobs off the list first. Katie and I were also happy to get our winter wheat planted. We had two trials and they are the trials next to the highway. We are hoping that is a good spot for 1) – drainage and 2) deer. We will soon see. We have soil sampling, fertilizer to get on, spraying and some general clean up yet so we are crossing our fingers for some great weather. We haven’t done much with our hops and they are not as plentiful this year but that is another task that we need to attempt. Katie is trying to work and as well as do her school on-line, so our time is tight!
Just another reminder that our next Cattle Sale is September 26. Please get in touch with James if you have cattle or if you are interested in working! His cell phone is 271-2005. Letting him know what you are bringing for cattle is appreciated by the buyers. This way they can work on their orders.
If you are on my email list, you will have seen this. . . I have a long-time spread sheet for weather information. As of the end of August we have accumulated 2407 CHU which is pretty much normal for us and we have had 423 mm of rain. Normal rainfall for that time period is around 365mm. Of course, as you know rainfall varies across the district.
