Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[HomeOnTheRange]

 

[farmerjan]

In for something to eat. Have not done alot today... but the rain stopped and moved east... looks like @Mini Horses might be gonna get some this aft/eve. Sun is out now... too wet to do much out there... But there is a breeze and it is drying out the surface. It will make the garden surface drier quicker so should be able to get in it and get it planted.
Total today is .4 inch... another .1 today with the showers. So for the last 2 days we had .65 which has been wonderful. We needed it. So unlike those of our fellow members with the insanity of constant rain in Texas. I am so sorry that you all have had so much, with the ensuing sloppy conditions, and parasite blooms. One of the guys on the cattle forum said they have had 55 inches from 4/1 to 6/1.... That is nearly 1 inch a day average... I cannot imagine it... I feel for all of you dealing with that. Yet, he said he isn't going to complain about rain, said it beats a drought...
Not sure I could be that pragmatic about it.

Shoulder is tough, going to go to massage therapist tomorrow... haven't done anything for over a week with the haying and all and I feel it.

Going to go up to the nurse cow barn and see if I can get the 2 cows and calves in this afternoon. Didn't try yesterday with the rain.

 

[farmerjan]

View attachment 108830

Thank God the one I saw was not looking like this pic !!!!! It was a black bear, probably 150 lbs... I am thinking a big yearling/2 yr old... maybe one of the cubs I saw last year... ???? Not as big as the adults I saw last year... neighbor said it was about half grown looking one he saw last week... most likely the same one that is being seen around.

 

[farmerjan]

Picked up the mail, and the balance transfers have already processed to the 18 month no interest cc I applied for and got. WOW... Fast service. Just checked and both the TSC and the other cc balances are 0.... so I am getting another year plus of no interest; and I will keep making some payments and using their money to do it. I was prepared to pay them off now... so will have some money to use if I need it instead... Everything else is paid off and there are small amounts on the ones I pay month to month in full...like my gas and such for the car... so that is a good feeling. I can make some payments along, and keep the rest in the interest bearing checking account to earn more in the meantime.

My nose is peeling, and both my arms too, from where they got sunburned from the super sensitive skin from the antibiotics... Lips are sure sore... SO glad to be off them.

Heard the heat has gotten way high in AZ... and a tornado in MD.... crazy weather. They are cleaning up the barn down the road that came down in the last wind storm a week ago when Deb lost her power there for a day or so...
Going up to the nurse cow pasture.

 

[murphysranch]

Even where I live, we have brown bears. A mama and two cubs were spotted about a mile away up the hill. No damage and people are leaving them alone.

 

[farmerjan]

Sad surprise tonight. One of the 2 red angus heifers that have been at the nurse cow pasture had a calf... I have been tossing around back and forth that she was bred, then just fat, then bred, then just fat. Well, tonight she came to the barn after a group were there a little while, and she had an udder... after a few minutes, she headed back across the field so I followed her after a little bit. Found a dead calf, looks like it was born dead.. she was talking to it.... but she is pretty young. She has an udder, but I am going to let her just dry up and get bred when we put the bull in there... she is too small to have a calf nursing on her and trying to get bred back... maybe this way she will have a chance to grow a little more and not be too stunted.
She must've been just bred, when we got them about 6 months ago... bought 3 just before the prices went too crazy... no one seemed to want them being red...just one of those days that you can sometimes find a bargain, so DS got them for a fair price... then we lost one so it made these 2 much more expensive. He asked if I wanted them before the 3rd one died... no idea why... and I had said yes, I would take them... so they are worth about what they are costing now... but they were done in trading out money he owed me... and I figured they could just get bred with the rest when we put the bull in... I kept thinking she was bred, but then was sure they were just rounded out...especially since she didn't really get any bigger...
I feel bad for her, but she will be better off. If it had been born alive then I would have made sure she was getting some extra grain, but this way she can just dry up, and then she can breed back when the bull goes in, in a couple weeks, whenever she comes back in heat in 30-60 days, and she will be able to grow a little more physically. I had pretty much figured she was just a little fat when nothing came about and the rest were done calving...
At least she looks okay, calf looked normal, and she looks like she cleaned okay too... will watch her close to make sure no discharge or anything. Part of it...
Not as bad as what @Baymule is going through.

 

[farmerjan]

Friday... Went to massage therapy this morning, and feel a little better. Jaw is still sore, but not killing me... still taking some stuff though. Got that crappy taste in my mouth and have been rinsing some to get rid of it. But, it sure could be worse.
Came back and stopped at Wal-mart... my plastic watering can accidentally got half way smooshed and got a big crack in it... I wanted a new one to be able to water in any tranplants or to water small sections or something... hey, it was cheap... and the replacement was like $1.98 or something cheap. Picked up a couple little things, and came on.
Stopped at a farm closeby here. They milk about 100 and had gone to all cheese making and such back about 6-10 years ago. Things went pretty good until covid shut things down and it has hurt them because they direct sold to many places that were shut down for the pandemic crap. But, she wanted to know if the company would rent the meters... I said that I would be glad to bring them to her to use... they only want to tell milk weights, no samples or anything...for their own use...
I dropped off the meters and helped set them up... I tested there many years ago before they went to processing their own cheese and quit selling to the milk company.... Then came to the house.
I just made a sandwich, and will change my clothes and maybe try to go out into the garden here in a bit.
Also picked up some yellow/wax beans... 4 packages for .50 each...and a package of broccoli that I will plant in a month or so for later fall crop.
I want to get some mowing done.... and get going on the potato rows.

It was sunny early, 63 last night and up to 83 today.... nice out, light breeze. We'll see what I can get done.

 

[farmerjan]

Had to run back down to the farm, one of the meters was not working right, a small plastic piece was broken off and I just took another one in there. This piece will snap occasionally... meter calibration is coming so will get it fixed then. Will have to replace a part on the meter.

Finally got into the garden. Planted 3 full length rows... 50 ft.... with potatoes and part of another row. Have to keep track of what I put where... My back said that was enough for the night. Nice temps out there... comfortable 70 and a light breeze. The other nice thing is as the sun starts to go down in the west, there are trees that will throw some shadows too, so it is not terribly hot while working in the evening. I also got the 6 salvaged sunflowers planted at the ends of some rows... hope they make it. I will probably try to water them tomorrow to settle the dirt around them good. They had some dirt/root ball from when I dug them up, so hopefully they will put out more roots and settle in. I also stuck some more sunflower seeds at the ends of each of the varieties of potatoes as well as a stick for a marker of the end of the rows. Got 4 varieties in.
The poor tomatoes look really sad... they were so leggy, and then finally got them in. I expect they will start to get some more roots put out and look better in a week but they are scraggly looking right now. Peppers look pretty good though.

I need to make something for supper, and do up some dishes that are sitting there too. I try to wait to do them with a decent sink full to conserve water. The well seems to run slow and I don't want to have problems. Probably need to get a well guy out to look at it. Ever since the neighbors across the street moved the daughter and her kids into the building that used to be a "dance hall" for Sat night blue grass, at the old saw mill they had there, and made it into a "house/apt" type thing, all the extra people seem to use alot of water, I think they are on the same vein of water as this house is on; as the difference in water pressure and all started after that occurred. I'd kinda like to put in a cistern for extra water storage and I could let it fill, during off times when there are fewer demands, as demand is high in the evening. Then have it as "insurance" for if we get drought conditions. Plus a hand pump for if we lose electricity... I would have available water . After living with just a cistern for years, you learn to conserve water... kinda like @Weldman saves even the collected water from a rain to use...

DS cut a little hay but then had to spread poultry litter as the guy was coming to plant corn in the next day or 2... luckily it got sprayed last week, after we got the first rye/wheat hay made off those fields, 2 weeks ago...
He was going to the dr at 2 for whatever he did to his knee, it has been hurting and has a "clicking" feeling... just did it this last week... and his tractor that had the PTO shaft break off inside the housing, the one that happened the next day after getting it back from the transmission rebuild.... is done. A neighbor has to take his tractor up there,; so DS is going to take the neighbors tractor and then pick ours up... no sense in going empty... so was going to load the neighbor's tractor around noon, go to the dr, then go to the tractor repair guy. Haven't talked to him this eve... guess I will find out what is what tomorrow.
Possible showers Sun aft... but then some more mostly sunny days... 20% chance a few days but you can't wait on that all the time. I guess he is going to mow more tomorrow...

Didn't get any mowing done... maybe tomorrow????

And that is a day in the life around here....

 

[farmerjan]

COOL MORNING 55 overnight....
Got up and DS called around 9:30-10... could I give him a ride back to the truck... he had taken the tractor and discbine and mowed several fields in the one subdivision... where we make some hay... so I went and got him and took him back to his truck, and he had something he was going to do with her but planned to come back and get some cows in and move some later..
Of course, that did not happen...
When I took him to his truck, we actually left my car there so I would have something to drive later.... it was at Deb's house and he had mowed the fields there and he wanted me to rake what was ready... so he took me from there in his truck, back to my house.... and he went on.

I took the other car, went up and got the tractor at the other field where I had left it after raking the other day... went up the road to Deb's and raked there. The 3 small fields were good and dry and the bigger one in the back of her house too... got them all raked, and went to the front field which was the last one he mowed, and raked part of it but there were several real green sections... so I quit with the drier stuff. It was partly/mostly cloudy for the better part of the day... hit 80 in the sun for a little bit but it dropped back to barely in the low 70's for the rest of the day with the clouds. It was not a real good drying day. Also managed to slice a tire on the back of the rake... so it is flat... it has dual tires on each side so I could rake what I wanted to finish... have no idea what I caught with the rake because I did not feel any "catch" or jerking of the rake....
So, I left the sections that were much more green to dry more... There is a 20-30% chance of showers Sunday afternoon... so no point in having it raked when it will be too green to bale anyway... If the showers bypass, and the sun is out again on Monday as forecast, then it will dry better that way. If he gets the other fields baled in the morning, and the parts that are not too green in the front field, then if it does rain then there won't be near so much to have to tedd out. The stuff he mowed today will not be hurt by any showers tomorrow since it has not had a chance to dry any with the clouds.

Then I went to get feed for the nurse cow pasture/calves, and went up there. Since he was not at the barn or anywhere around when I got the feed, I didn't even try to get the couple of cows and calves in the pen for the feed. I just fed the cows out in the 2 feed troughs, calves got their usual feed in the pen and they came in through the creep gate... Took another bale of grass hay up for the 2 holstein bull calves, and gave them some and fed them grain. I want to let them out with the rest, but not until I get the last few cow/calf pairs out of there, so I can open up both sides of the pen for the calves to all come in where they want... Otherwise, they could get hurt with the bigger cows in there shoving and all when I catch up the ones I want.

Then I came back to the house and went out in the garden for a bit. Back is still stiff and being on the tractor seat for several hours did not help... I got the 3/4 row planted with one variety and another full row with a different variety... have at least another full row of that variety to plant... then there are still alot more to do...
I did put in some "dipper gourd" seeds that are old...see if they germinate,,, and some cucumbers, on the last half panel that I did not use for tomatoes...
I see a couple of the corn kernels were sprouting, and coming through, that I just planted a few days ago... and 2 green bean seeds trying to poke through... so they ought to really sprout up in the next day or 2... Then I can see if I did "double plant" that one small section with purple beans and summer squash...

It was getting dark when I said I quit... doing 2 rows of potatoes at a time is not so bad as doing 3+, that first day... I still have quite a few rows to get planted though... LOTS of potatoes in the boxes yet...
I will have to look and see if any of the old butternut squash seeds are coming up yet... and get some of the cantaloupe and other seeds in that section that will be the asparagus bed next year. I got some "orange watermelon" seeds... they are supposed to be an heirloom.... might try a few for kicks... have some 2 yr old seeds that are a real bright YELLOW watermelon... might try to plant them away from the others... just for the fun of it.
And I got a round watermelon when I stopped at Walmart the other day... they were marked down to $4 from 6.89...
There is alot of grass coming up, in the garden... Need to get the small battery tiller put together.... and do the rows where I want to plant... and smother the rest with some hay mulch... Found a roll at Deb's that he forgot last year and it is looking kinda black... no chemicals used there... I am going to take the bale truck and go get it for mulch...

Got a tick off my ear this morning, and another one crawling on the back of my neck when I got the feed for the calves... 28 so far this year..... cannot believe how many. DS saw the one on my ear this morning and said that everyone he has talked to, has said how bad they are this year...

Jaw is sore but not quite so tender... still taking some stuff for the ache, with being on the tractor and in the garden... the body is protesting... so it helps to keep it at a low level...

Time for a good hot shower

 

[Baymule]

People don’t realize how hot a hayfield can be. The evaporation of moisture plus heat from the sun, turns it into a sweat festival. It’s exhausting. I’m glad y’all are getting so much hay made! Around here, it’s just too wet. Last year, drought and too dry, this year, it won’t stop raining long enough to get anything done.