Weather helps strike more chores off list

Well, I’m sad to see the sunshine leave, but we certainly had a good run of it.
October has been an amazing month, which sure made it nice to get things finished.
As I check the forecast and see that the rain was coming, I keep wishing for “just another week!” We always want “just a little more!”
Here at the Emo Agricultural Research Station, we ended up doing things a little more like the old ways prior to the combine.
Since the plots were not drying down, we ended up cutting them with our little binder (“Suzee” she is known as) and putting them in the oven to dry down.
Now we will try run them through the combine (we thought this might be our next best option to at least try and get some data from some of these later seeded trials).
We finished cutting on Friday and I was able to chop everything off the plots, but now we need to thresh and I have a few areas that should be plowed.
Looks like that will be off the list for at least this week.
Once we get these threshed out, I will take a harder look at getting all my data summarized.
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Meanwhile, I’m still trying to check things off the list at home. I still haven’t been able to tackle my manure and if it turns wet, I might be wishing I started that job rather than some of the other ones.
The cows ended up coming home for water and salt later on the weekend, so I locked them in and Ivomec’ed them.
Maddie and Marlee were helping, and Maddie is convincing Marlee to be a bit braver. Maddie just wanted to sit and watch her favourite cow, “Darma” (she was filling her face with some of the hay that I enticed them into the corral with).
She went and got Darma some grain, but it is hard to just feed Darma when many of the others are just as friendly—and love the grain pail just as much.
We went down and Ivomec’ed our bulls, as well. It worked out well to have some distractions as the bulls didn’t pay as much attention to what we were up to with two little girls running and giggling.
I decided I should start feeding my cows, so Maddie, Marlee, and I laid out some old hay to try and clean that up first. I spread it out far apart, and quite a distance from home, so they have to walk for water.
I like to keep them out of the fields now with hunting getting close.
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Just a reminder we have our last cattle sale of the season this Saturday (Oct. 30) at the Stratton sales barn.
If you have any questions, please get in touch with Clayton Teeple at 487-1465 or 275-8188. The number at the sales barn is 483-5354.
This sale will feature breeding stock, with the animals to be preg-checked Thursday night at the sales barn.
As well, we have Penny Lawlis from OMAFRA coming to do some staff training that same night on animal handling and behaviour.
All staff are expected to attend this session, which starts at 7 p.m., but everyone is welcome.