Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[Baymule]

A good couple of days away does wonders. You should go visit somebody, even an overnight will refresh you.

 

[Bruce]

And of all things ... I have NO WATER in the faucets at the house. Checked the breaker box and flipped them to make sure the well pump hadn't kicked off... NOPE

That sucks! The time it happened to me I ended up calling the well drillers after checking all the parts in the house. I assumed the pump had gone belly up. They found that one of the wires in the well head had arced and fried. How this happens 40 years after the pump was put in I have no idea. They had just enough wire left to be able to splice it.

 

[farmerjan]

Home; I came out from the gate at the nurse cow field, coming to the house, it is almost dark...and here is a cow walking along the fence....ON THE WRONG SIDE .... then I see another... I called and they headed towards me which I had stopped at the gate to their field by then... and got the 2 in without anyone else managing to get out... Then I hear another cow and here comes a 3rd one... had to get a bucket off the back of the truck to trick her to come in the gate while trying to keep the rest in... Called DS... yes he had opened up the front field with the grass because he said there were several out this afternoon.... and I told him that I just now had to put 3 back in... the 2 CONSTANT troublemakers... and one of mine now is following them out. He is going to bring a roll of hay tonight when he gets done (sounds like he is at the races although he would not admit it) and they are getting moved tomorrow... These are the ones that are getting preg checked on Wed.... I am D@#NED sick of them getting out... and DS has done nothing to fix any of the spots I have been patching... He was going to get them moved the next couple of days... but now it will be tomorrow.... This pasture will be empty all summer so at least I won't have to deal with it once they are out.
Testing went fine, and I told the guy that the company has hired a new girl to do some part-time stuff, and that she is maybe looking for some more herds so that I may be giving some to her...maybe this herd since it is closer up to her area.... but it would not be for a few months until she gets some experience under her belt. She is from a dairy farm background so at least knows the basics of farming and all that. This might be the answer to my getting out... I will know more after we do the meter calibration in August. I think that it might be time... to at least cut back a few more....maybe keep the few I really like...or are real close... I know that my far away one is on the way out... and 2 others are just testing every other month anymore... maybe not have to deal with it in the winter anymore... WE'LL see how things go for the next couple months... I've got my 30 years in... the extra money is still nice... but I am not sure it is worth the aggravation....

No water still; DS said earlier that I can go to his house to take a shower or whatever... and he will look at it in the morning I guess... Maybe look and see if something happened to the wires in the well cap thing like @Bruce suggested. It is not the breaker.... I can take a couple of 5 gal buckets to the water trough next door where the PITA cows are and scoop out some if I need it. It is a spring fed one and the water is real good... runs continuously.... I will deal with it tomorrow. Deb is wanting to come and cut down the couple limbs on the maple tree in front that are hanging down so you hit them when you are using the riding mower... I think she wants someone/ or something to do/ with someone... she is out for several days at the farm.
Brought the samples all in the house. Will take the meters and hoses off the truck tomorrow and make sure there is nothing else in there and go get some of the mulch hay from around the hay storage places.
I'm hoping that it will be dry enough on top that I can get some more stuff planted.... cukes, cantaloupe, winter squash and maybe some more summer squash. I know I have none in the freezer... and I like "mashed yellow squash" ( done just like mashed potatoes) for a veg... and they have to be less fattening too.... or just with a little butter, salt and pepper.... but mashed is good. They don't take much time to blanch and freeze either...
I need to leave at least 1 or 2 rows for later plantings of green beans and some broccoli and cabbage I will start in about 4-6 weeks for fall. I like broccoli too.... might try to make some sauerkraut if I get some cabbages...
Just hoping that it will start to grow quick so I can see what is coming up and what isn't in the older seeds. The real old seeds probably aren't going to be any good as the sprouting was a dismal failure... but they are 10 years old or more.... .
I did get a chance to look at the tomatoes and peppers real quick before I left for work and they really looked good.
The gladiolus bulbs I planted the day before the garden in one of the planters, are coming up... so I am hoping that the vegs start coming up quick too.
Nothing NEEDS to be done tonight that I can do... and I am not in the mood to do it anyway. Better to go to bed and get up with a better attitude....

 

[farmerjan]

Just a note, I tried to post the previous post 4 times last night and again twice this morning. Inbetween I went on a couple of other sites and had no trouble getting on or anything. Posted on another one and it took like 3 seconds. I seem to have trouble getting on here often. Thought it was my computer, but then I think it would be a problem with any site. Any one else have any trouble like this?

 

[Mini Horses]

I've had computer issues all week but I have satellite net and often the storms interrupt and the storms are not where you are, just between. . Confusing.

BUT. I have had this site with access trouble more often lately. Usually for a day or so. And the posting doesn't. Maybe it's just here in VA.

I like the idea to drop further farms! I have two of those I'm planning same. No issue with the stores but, a cut back effort. I had once cut to 3, then they added 4th after I had said I'd help until a rep found. Now a 5th has taken that route. Now I need to back them off again...two are near each other and both further from me. Plus 3 once a month that are only 1 hr each quickies by them. They need a rep for those 5!!

That would allow me a few hrs in slow time, 3 days a week in seasonal resets. That's where I think I want to go for maybe another year. Gives me time to find and develop a little steady farm income...all I need. We'll work at getting out of our jobs! . Two years ago it was good...now, today's economy, it's a touch scary.

 

[murphysranch]

Hi FJ. As I've said, I've been following you and learning alot. But what I don't know is what you do for those dairy farms. I went to an ag college centuries ago, so I'm sorta familiar with dairies. Thanks.

 

[farmerjan]

@murphysranch ; I may have explained my job back awhile in my journal, but short version... I am a milk tester. I work for Dairy Herd Improvement Assoc... DHIA.... we go into a dairy farm when they are going to be milking... set up meters that gather milk and take a sample from every cow that goes through the parlor... I get a weight of how much milk she makes for that milking....the milk is tested for butterfat, protein , and somatic cell count (scc) . High cell count means an infection of some sort which is what causes mastitis. The milk companies that pick up the milk pay more for low cell count milk because it has a "longer shelf life". Most mastitis is caused by a staph or strep infection. Some are chronic and some are sudden flareups due to an injury or some environmental condition that causes her to get exposed to a "bug". Understand that everybody, has "germs" and "bugs". We cannot live in a sterile body. Every cow has a scc... but the lower the count, the "cleaner" the milk so to speak. There are allowable limits for a milk company to accept from a farm. The farmer gets paid a premium for lower cell count milk as well as for higher butterfat. We do not get paid on protein in this area... places like Wis and some parts of PA even, as well as other states, will pay on what is called "cheese yield" and that is affected by the protein.... that milk goes mostly into processing at cheese plants.
I record all pertinent info that occurs on the farm... calving, dry off, breeding all that sort of stuff and the farmer gets back a concise report with all that info in one place which also helps him to "compare his cows against each other" for profitability... plus the lab reports on the cow's milk...
The basics boil down to this... A cow should calve every 12 months... she is in milk 10 of those 12 months with a 60 day dry period for the calf (fetus) to complete it's growth and for her body to regenerate and produce colostrum for the new calf... Then she will come into her milk and should peak at around 75-200 days and then start to fall off so she is making less milk at dry off...
Say a cow makes 25,000 lbs a year . She has a calf every 12-12.5 months... breeds back at 60-90 days fresh, has average butterfat of 3.5-3.7%... Low scc of 75-100,000 regularly. Compared to a cow that makes 40,000 lbs of milk. Has mastitis off and on; so has a high cell count which hurts the % in the milk tank; which means if she gets treated with antibiotics, her milk is NOT going in the tank.... so lost income... everytime she gets "pulled out of the tank" that is "lost income" ( yes, it is often fed to baby calves or pigs or something... but it is not making him any actual money in the milk check).... then she does not breed back as fast, so then only has a calf every 15-18 months... butterfat the same 3.5% or so. Although she is making alot more milk, there comes a balance and that high producer may actually be making the farmer less money because of her problems... even with more milk.... So what we do is provide a farmer with a monthly report...(usually) and he can "stay on top of what his cows are doing." There are other factors, but we basically have computer programs that now can compare everything the cows do, produce, don't do etc... and it is right in his hand. There are computer systems that he has everything in front of him right there on the farm... even ways to get a reading on the milk viscosity which is an indication of mastitis... and all the daily info is compiled right there... but for a true reading they have to send off the samples so they know what individual cows are doing.
My job is basically being phased out as farms get bigger and more and more electronics come into play... robotic milkers ... all sorts of stuff. But that is only economical on big farms to install all those electronics as they don't come cheap...
Unfortunately the smaller farms are going by the wayside due to costs and having to make more milk to spread the costs out over a bigger base. So a farmer gets bigger, and then they get into more and more electronic things that also give them answers to things that they will wait a week for from us... although many of the reports now can be e-mailed to a farmer so it is only turn around time from samples sent, to run through the machines there in the labs, to e-mail info back to the farmer...

 

[farmerjan]

Nice out this morning but going to get hotter. Yesterday, Sunday, DS mowed about 30-40 acres. I went and picked him up so he could leave the tractor since he will bale with that one.
Then we moved the cows that keep getting out of the useless high tensile fencing here next door. They were out Sat eve then again Sunday morning, and after DS texted me and said they were out and he had to put them back in... I went and got them in the smaller "catch lot" and shut the gates. They had some shade and some grass which they ate down... no water, but tough. No more loose and into my yard and then in the road and a couple had gone through the garden but did very little damage other than a couple of onion plants and making tracks in the soft soil. So the trouble makers are at the barn and will be preg checked on Wed and moved to other appropriate places. DS moved that bull to a group of cows with small calves ready to be bred rather than go get a new one out of the bull lot. This one has either got all these cows well bred, or we have problems. He has spent the better part of his time at the corner of the field that is closest to the bull across the road just quietly "talking trash about how big and tough he is"... So he had better have done his job with those cows he was in with already... To the tune of being 5+ months bred.

He also came by about dark after discovering that the hot water was leaking at the bottom element... it has literally been leaking enough to get the well down and so I had a little water pressure but not much at all. That is why I said I had no water because it literally ran a trickle then stopped every time. The water is all over the basement dirt floor. He said he thought he had the special socket/wrench that you use to change the hot water elements (it is electric) at his house. Well he has one but it was pretty well worn and said it would not grip the nut part to get it out so he was going to get one in the morning (today) and then fix it tonight. He has an element for it as he used to have problems with his at his house. He did turn off the water to the heater so I do have cold running water anyway. Heated a little and washed up pretty decently. Hopefully will be able to take a shower at my own house this evening. But at least the cold works and I could flush and all in the bathroom. Got a gallon jug mostly full this morning and set out on the deck in the sun to make sun tea... I had about 1 glass left. Whew!!!

Planted some of the purple "green" beans last night and some older butternut squash seeds to see if they come up. Moved the row marker and want to get out there in just a bit to do a small sq of country gentleman sweet corn, and a spot for cucmbers and cantaloupe. Got some more new butternut squash seeds and some striped crenshaw to plant.

Got to go around and pick up all the stuff that Deb helped cut away from the porch... all the volunteer black walnut trees that the squirrels so thoughfully keep "planting" for me. also the stuff we cut out of the maple tree so I can ride the mower without getting my head taken off. Going to hang the spider plants now on the branches too. Frost is done I am sure, so they can get put out for the summer in the shade of the maple. With a few of the lower hanging branches out, they will get a little early sun and then mostly shade all day but it is definitely brighter under there.

DS was going to work on the rake teeth this morning since he moved the cows and all last night. Said that I should be able to rake some of the hay later this afternoon, if the sun dries it out, enough.

Headed out to do the nurse cow and get the day started for "whatever comes up next".

 

[murphysranch]

Thank you FJ.

When I was in grad school, I worked with the United Dairymen of Arizona. There was an aflatoxin disaster and millions of gallons of milk had to be dumped. I was the one to find where the aflatoxin was residing within the milk protein. (in the ash portion). With that discovery, the UDA was able to screen future milk for aflatoxin contamination.

I imagine petri dishes of all those samples you take are something done by outside labs.

Fascinating learning, by the way. I love science. Thank you again.

 

[farmerjan]

Our milk samples are sent to a lab in Lancaster PA. They can do lots of other things now besides the basics.... Milk can be tested for A2A2, they do DNA testing, Johnes, specific things to find what type of mastitis and there are tests nowadays for susceptibility to different antibiotics and treatments.. The lab also offers different types of blood tests... and there is alot of DNA stuff done with reg animals.....