Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[Mini Horses]

I'm more coastal that FJ so, a little sooner over frost. That said, I'm on "the line" of almost a light frost tonight...mid to upper 70s all week coming. Personally I'm done with frost dates. . It's chilly today with mid 50s, overcast and 10-15 winds. Jacket weather!

 

[farmerjan]

Cold start again. Temp said it got down to 32 last night. Tonight supposed to be colder....
Sun is out but it is supposed to cloud up and more possible showers/rain later. Just gotta take it one day at a time.
Sitting here with a cup of hot cocoa...
DS said he tagged a calf that he was sure belonged to my longhorn the other day. Now she has another calf and is keeping the tagged calf away from her and not letting it nurse. He is thinking twins? He said the tagged one is stealing off a couple other cows until they realize and then they shove it away. He had a time catching it... so I am going up with a bottle in a little bit... see if I can get it and get a bottle in it. Let it stay out with the other cows if it is stealing.. and supplement with a bottle maybe? Have to go up and see what is what. Too bad that one cow of mine won't take a 2nd one, but she has an attitude and can't keep her in this barn in the pen without her trying to go over the gate... she should have a 2nd one on her... might see if I can get her and her calf in and then try the other calf... won't know until I go up and see who and what... DS said the calf is very determined to get milk where ever he can find it so that is good...
Got a couple others that need to be gotten in... one to be sold that was open and isn't much of a mother... her calf will go too.... gotta get the holstein bull calf in and get banded so he can be sold and check several there for preg status. The heifers he moved there to calve, are starting to drop calves....
Knock on wood again... but no more coyote problems since they got the 3 there around the sheep, then the 2 a few nights later up in the pasture where he found the dead calf (poss twin).
DS showed me pics of them that the guys hunting them took... held up by their back feet (shoulder height) they touched the ground and these guys are 6 ft plus... DS said they were really big... bet one was the same one I saw up at the nurse cow pasture a few weeks ago... I told DS he was really big. The last 2 were both males they said.

Nearly all the pre sprouted seeds are up and although leggy due to not enough sun where they are... I put them out against the house when it is warmer out... this coming week they will be able to go out during the day, if the temps are going to be in the 70's and better.

Knock on wood, the escapees are staying in at the other pasture...

Schools are out this coming week for the spring break... not allowed to call it Easter vacation... It will be nice days for them by the looks of it. Some clouds but no real rainy washouts.

 

[Mini Horses]

my bottle kid is stealing, too! He hangs with twin boys, both black like him. When they nurse he jumps in and has learned to go from the back as doe can't smell him, just hers on her side. Smart little begger!!

Great on the coyote kills!! Do they offer a bounty up there? For a while there was one here..maybe $8-10 per? Not sure if it's still offered. Guy behind takes out all he sees as he wants the deer for himself. Works for me! They are always out for an easy meal and a new calf, goat kid or a lamb is just that! Not happy with just one, they want dinner every night. It's worse than a snake in the hen house. It's all costly.

 

[farmerjan]

No bounty's offered by Va state anymore, that I am aware of. There are some counties that still offer bounties though. Basically you have to contact the county you are wanting to hunt in and see if they still offer a bounty. I believe that Augusta county to the north of us has stopped paying a bounty... I'm not sure about Rockbridge but I think they stopped too. Botetourt just south of here was still paying a bounty as was Franklin county.
The guys that came to hunt the ones at the farm and DS's property at the house where the sheep were, like to hunt them and have all the infared scopes and all to do so. More power to them.... DS's house and the sheep field there backs up to the other property where the one was seen eating the dead calf... most all killed were males though... I think there was 1 female in the first 3 and the last 2 were big males.
There are some places that say offering bounties does not decrease the number of animals overall.... that if you do not reduce the pack numbers by 60% then they will recover the losses the next year through breeding... OKAAAY.... but if you did not kill some, wouldn't the pack numbers just continue to increase? And with the availability of domestic animals, it is not like the balance of nature and available food will run out as fast.... Around here, a dead coyote is considered a plus. Lately it seems that we have to deal more and more with their increasing numbers, and the crosses so that they are increasing in size. 50-60 lb coyotes are the norm in this area now....

Chilly here, only about 50 and breezy. Nearly noon.

 

[Mike CHS]

It has been cold and windy here today but no snow and it's going to be up in the 70's tomorrow..

 

[Legamin]

Gee Whiz, it is raining here for a change . Ya think we have had enough yet?

"Local" station about 50 miles north; the next closest is about 50 miles south, both in the Shen Valley so pretty accurate for us here in the middle; anyway, they say our year to date normal is about 32-33 inches. Total YTD normal in any year is around 36" total, which is about 3" a month give or take, more in the spring, less in the summer....
We have had about 53 inches so far this year. Raining now, quite steady/hard with 1-2" expected. At this rate we will be closing in on nearly twice the normal rainfall for the year. Have never had this much in the 37 years I have lived here. That is not taking into account horrific disasters like Hurricane Camille, before I moved here, that dumped like 24 inches in 24 hours and caused devastating flooding and loss of life and whole towns etc where they just washed away.

We did get all the hay up that was on the ground since Sunday, took longer to get dry with several passes tedding and all, due to cloudy overcast days that were supposed to be all sun all week; nearly 300 square bales and the rest rolled and my son rolled over 30 rolls for a neighbor whose tractor alternator went out and couldn't get another til next Tues. There was hay down everywhere this past week due to the "supposedly nice sunny weather we were gonna have. I got the clothes off the line at 9:30 last night after getting home from testing cows and the 14 or so square bales on the truck covered last night too. It is raining quite hard, and 37*. Just miserable weather.

If only we could control the weather! (can you imagine the neighborhood feuds THAT would cause!?). Glad you got the hay up. I don’t know about your neighborhood but it’s pretty dear where we are.

 

[farmerjan]

Came in a little bit ago and ate a real late lunch. Guess it was more like lunper (lunch/supper)... whatever.
I had to go to the nurse cow field and see about that calf that DS said my longhorn had twins. I caught it, it was a little thin but not real weak... and for the first time since new knees, got it between my knees and straddled it and got it to FINALLY take a bottle. Fed it 3/4 bottle as I did not want to over feed it... but wanted it to get it's tummy filled up pretty good. It is stealing off other cows DS said so this ought to give it a little more energy to do that. It took a bit as it wanted no part of the bottle. Finally, I had to turn it around and back it up into the V with the drivers door open and the side of the truck so to speak so it quit pulling against me... and it finally got the idea that it could suck... as I was playing with the nipple in and out of it's mouth and squeezing it to get milk into the mouth and down the throat... But I will give her credit, after I backed her into the "corner" of the truck, (out in the field). and she got a good taste, she did get it figured out and drank pretty good. She pretty much "quit" to take a breather at about 3/4 bottle and that was all I wanted to give her so it worked out good. See DS said she was with the Longhorn and that is why he tagged her, then 2 days later he noticed a different calf with the longhorn and she was not letting the tagged calf nurse and it was going to some of the other cows and stealing some until they realized it wasn't their own calf... so he tagged the "new untagged calf" and saw it nurse so that is when he determined that she must have had twins... and he saw her flip the calf off her when it tried to nurse yesterday and then called me and told me about it.
So, I did go up and found it off by its self sleeping, and then it got up and I had to walk all around it to get it to where I could grab it as it was staying just out of reach... and that was all it took... it was really fighting me with it just held between my knees pulling back as hard as it could... so I finally grabbed a front leg and kinda walked, hopped, pulled it around to the truck and backed it up to where it couldn't back up any further... then I could release some of the tight squeeze I had on its head between my knees and when it quit fighting me so much it relaxed and finally started to suck. She went right to it pretty good. I will go up tomorrow and do another bottle and see how she is acting. Not going to cause scours and this ought to give her enough energy to go after other cows to steal a little more too... If she doesn't seem like she is getting enough then might be a bottle calf... but don't want to overwhelm her system and cause scours right off... besides she is with familiar animals so best to leave well enough alone and make sure she is getting fed for now. Not going to get bent out of shape at the longhorn... many cows won't take 2 calves....she has such a little udder and raised a nice single calf 2 years in a row... so this is a bonus. Both are heifers, so they will be "good" (breedable).... we'll see how things go.

Had to go get a new bag of milk replacer since the old one was wormy/buggy....several years old.... there was only about 5 lbs left anyway... but what a sticker shock... nearly $100 for a 50 lb bag of all milk/milk replacer... What I don't use will go in the freezer. Got a couple bags of feed to keep enticing the calves in the creep gate into the lot at the barn so I can get them worked....

Did the dishes and going to make that bread pudding since I got milk the other day..... nice to heat the kitchen with the oven too.

It is downright cold. We have had some sun and more clouds ... and SNOW FLURRIES..... then 75-80 by Wed????

Rescheduled the cancelled farm from Thursday to next Wed.... got to call the owner sampler and get him to take the samples one day... got to schedule the other farm near him for next week also and try to make the trip count... have to do that Monday also as they are both mennonites and don't like to talk business on Sundays.

Had a farm that hasn't tested in 2 YEARS, text me and wanted to know if I was still testing.... his father has decided he wants to go back to testing.... and did I want to come and try to "straighten out the mess"......REALLY ????? I will have to talk to them. I really did not want to add back any more herds... AND they would have to go back on as a new herd basically.... that's ALOT of work... and I have heard they are up to 200 cows now....
.....NOOOOO
I will get back to them after I get the other farms worked in next week....
Tomorrow afternoon I have to do the one I test on the owners weekend to milk... no set up, not a problem... It is going to still be chilly outside so that's okay....

So, time to go in and see about getting the bread pudding made and in the oven.

 

[farmerjan]

If only we could control the weather! (can you imagine the neighborhood feuds THAT would cause!?). Glad you got the hay up. I don’t know about your neighborhood but it’s pretty dear where we are.

@Legamin ;
I am flattered that you started reading my "journal"... just realize that first post was in Nov 2018......
There are days we wish we could control the weather... especially when we have hay down or needing to be cut.... but it would be a disaster if we had that much control.....

 

[Mini Horses]

Knees and ankle are all working!!! Back to cow wrangling again....

 

[Bruce]

Chilly here, only about 50 and breezy. Nearly noon.

IT made 39°F today, and rain all day. Won't be much warmer tomorrow.