Raking with the new tractor and some cow pictures

Well, first cutting is done.  I ended up with 101 bales.  Quite a bit better than last years first cutting where I finished with only 40.  Now, on to everyone else's hay!

My brother and I mowed down 23 acres for my dad the day after I finished wrapping my first cutting.  I went out late Sunday night to start raking.  This was the first time I got to rake with my new tractor.  I haven't had this much fun raking since I was a kid raking for the first time!  It runs very nice and it is just a joy to operate.

I needed a break yesterday so I took a few minutes and went out to check on the cows.

Thunder met daisy and I shortly after getting in the pasture.  He is massive now!  I think the hump on his neck alone weighs more than I do.

I had a chance to get a couple of quick pics of my two of my favorite calves this year.  The first one is of Sally Shorthorns first girl to Thunder.  She is growing really really fast and is super cute.  I hope she keeps her reddish hue color she has right now.

Sally shorthorn with her daughter;  Shorthorn x (charolais/angus)

 Another of my favorites is Fifty's bull.  He is enormous.  I am stunned at how fast him and Sally's calf are growing.

Just to be sure I got a her best side Socks came around for another photo op before I left.  Awesome!

Here is a great comparison picture that I wanted to post to show the variance you can have in cattle sizes.  The left cow is Butterscotch, she is a charolais x hereford.  The center one is one of my first Angus cows and that is Chilli, she is also my smallest.  The one on the right is Beefcake.  I just got her from a coworker this spring.  She is a big momma!!!!   She is actually the only one in the herd that I think could take on thunder and maybe even win!  I have always thought Chilli was small but standing next to these two she looks like a midget.

Now, you may ask why I have a cow that is so small if my business is to raise and sell beef for meat.  Well, the reason is this.  I have some customer who want a smaller half, or a small whole steer.  If I were to sell them one of the steers from the other larger cows it would be way to for their needs.  So, I keep her and her sister Koyuki for the main reason that I want to have some smaller steers every year.  I am also happy to say that a smaller cow also eats much much less hay!  Beefcake will take in almost twice the amount of hay that Chilli will eat.  Furthermore, while Chilli is a small cow and her steers are smaller than the others they are still bigger than she is when finished out due to the genetics from Thunder.

Well, off to bed, long day tomorrow and an enormously busy few days coming down the line.  I will try to keep everyone updated but it will be tough here for a few more weeks till first cutting is done. Once it is all done for everyone then things get marginally easier in that department and a bunch of other stuff starts up!

Kenny

First cutting 2014 in the books!!!

I started mowing the first cutting last Saturday.  Here at home it was phenomenal.  I spread manure on the entire field over the winter and then hit it with some fertilizer this spring when I did all my other fields.  WOW what a difference organic matter will make. 

I didn't think it was that great when I was mowing it but I knew it was going to be better than it has been.

I started baling all my other properties first before baling here at home.  The picture below is at one of my rental properties.  This was taken at my best rental field.  It was a great first cutting.  It can always be better but was still pretty dang good.  I ended up with 101 bales off of 67 acres, which averaged out is 1.5 bales per acre.  Last year I averaged .5/acre.  Much much better this year.  Now I just need to find a way to get cattle manure on my rental fields because I know this is the most important thing I am missing on them.

This was also my first opportunity to use the new tractor.  I was very fortunate to have my buddy Steven home to help with the hay this round.  He loved the tractor and it worked even better than I thought it would.  I wanted so badly to jump on and take it for a round or two.  I can't wait till next cutting to do it again!

Here is a picture of the first row of bales.  I moved the fence down by the barn to make an extra three rows of storage space for bales.  I am hoping to fill the entire area with bales this year which would give me approx. 300-400 bales.

I am looking forward to some good news.  I have applied for a grant to help install some non-point source pollution here on the farm.  I am looking to install a buffer strip along the feeding area, a heavy use pad to feed on, manure storage area, and a bunch of fencing to control access to the pasture area and creek, and a year round cattle waterer for the cows.  If everything is approved it will be a huge step forward here on the farm toward being much more environmentally sound and also in giving the cattle a much better location to eat at.  I will definitely be posting picture of the entire process.  

More to come soon.  Still waiting for the next calf to be born.  Been a little while since I have had one and I am starting to get anxious.

Have a great night everyone!

Kenny

45 down, 56 to go!!!

Pick after wrapping stuff from here first.  Finished that row and started another.   More pictures and story later this week.   After midnight now, need a nap before work at 5:30 am.  

Why can't weather forecasters figure it out!

Well, I mowed all the hay down between yesterday and today.  All 70 acres of it.  When I started this morning the forecast was still calling for clear warm weather today, tomorrow, and Tuesday.

I just got back from finishing the last of the mowing and planning how in the world I am gonna get it all done in two days and decided to check the forecast.  Now the forecast is calling for decent weather tomorrow and Tuesday, although not nearly as warm as they said earlier today, heavy rain Wednesday, and then clear for a week!!!!  So frustrating!   How can a forecast change from 80% chance of rain every other day for the entire two week forecast to one day of rain and then sunny and happy!?!?!?!?


Ok, that is my rant for today.  I now need to get to bed as I have a phenomenally busy two days ahead of me!

Goodnight,

Kenny

Calf #8 for 2014 and a continuation of 50's Bloodline

I came home to find we had another calf today.  The mother is Precious, daughter of Fifty.  She had a big black bull today.  The father, since he is coal black, has to be Legacy.  He is actually quite big and looks pretty healthy.  Mom and son are doing great.  

Dam; Black Angus, Sire; Legacy (Summitcrest Black Angus)

I am thinking about sending him and my other black Angus calf out to Montana this fall.  My buddy can raise them up out there over winter and we can sell them in the spring as demand is very high out there right now for cows and bulls!  Would be awesome to know that Legacy would be contributing to the bloodlines out west!  The grandfather of this calf is Bexter, another great black Angus bull.  I used A.I. to breed 50 and got Precious.  So the blood lines in this one are very very good lines.

I have been extremely happy with all the calves born this year.  I nice mix of sizes, breeds, sexes, and colors.  There are all getting better every year.  Can't wait to be able to sell feeders and herd stock as well as fat steers, the added diversified forms of income are what will make us much more flexible and able to switch gears at any time to adapt to the market.

I will post some more cow pics over the weekend.  I am sure that I will be out to see them and have time to take some better pictures of everyone.  I am also gearing up to pull all the steers that from last year out of the herd as well as Legacy and those whom I want him to breed and take them to my buddy Willy's house for the summer.  He has some pasture ground that will help me out greatly and I will be adding two of his females to my herd on shares to compensate for the use of his ground.  Should work out very nicely for both of us.  The plan is to set up the pasture ground down the road that is only a mile away for Legacy and his women and just use Willy's pasture, which is 15 miles away, for over summering the steers.

I am getting very close to needing to secure much more ground.  Lot of planning to do before the end of this summer if I am going to make it through the winter on top!


Have a great weekend everyone,

Kenny

MORELS!!!!! and some other stuff!

Well it is that time of year again and I headed south to see my buddy to look for mushrooms.  I went last weekend and we only found about 22.  I was hoping this weekend would be better.

Loaded up for morel hunting

This time the entire family went with me.  The kids played in the town park while me and my buddy Spanky went hunting.  We found a nice batch in the morning for lunch.  We took them back to the park and my wife cooked everyone lunch.

The kids counting the mushrooms we found in the morning. 

After lunch we looked all afternoon.  The small square pictured below on the left is what we found from 1 pm till 5 pm.  We wanted to eat supper together before we headed back home so we went to my buddy favorite spot to check to see if there was anything there.  Due to the limited amount of time we went straight to the spot we like to call the "Honey Hole".  We usually find our highest numbers in this area and if there wasn't anything there we knew there were none to be found elsewhere in the area.  We were not to be disappointed.  After spotting the first three we all looked up and all we could see was mushrooms everywhere.  It took 45 minutes to pick them all.  It was awesome!!!  In 45 minutes we picked 322 mushrooms.  That is more than we have found collectively the last 4 years I have gone down total.  We found  a whopping 385 on the day.  Definitely was a fun fun day!

385 morels in one day this year.  

Tonight I went out with my son to check the cows and make sure everyone was doing well.  We had some nice soaking rain this morning that was followed by some very warm and sunny weather today so I asked Alex if he wanted to check for some mushrooms.  We started with the spot where I used to always find them first.  Last year we only found one there and this year I have seen nothing.  Well, I learned my lesson last year and I have several spots I check each time I go out.  I was just telling Alex that we might as well head in to eat supper when something caught the corner of my eye.  I spun around and said "Alex, we got one!"  he turned around and spotted it pretty quickly and then he started spotting all of it's buddies.

Alex pointing to his first morel of the year here in Columbiana Ohio.  

I have always wanted to catch them early once to check their growth out to see if they truly just pop and they are done or if they grow for a while first.  So we checked all the ones we found and picked a few of them for frying up for supper and left the rest go and I marked a small one with my pen and took a picture to compare each day for a few days till it starts to get old to see how it grows.

Morel Growth Study 2014, Day 1

 Here are the few that we picked.  It frosted pretty decent on Sunday night and I checked the area Saturday and there was nothing so I am certain that between the cold and the lack of recent rain that these little fellas popped up in the last 24-48 hours.

The first morels we picked on the farm this year.

 Here is a picture with my safety glasses for size reference.  Again, not the biggest I have had here but for the first ones these are nice.  I would take a woods full of these any day of the week!

Morel size reference first crop 2014

I wanted to post a few pics of the cows enjoying the pasture the other day.  They were relaxing in the early morning and so I had some time to get a few pictures and check them all out.

Here is Black Eye on the left and Candy apple on the right with  her baby in the middle.

 It was early Saturday morning and as the little ones were getting up it was obviously breakfast and me being there was not going to stop that.

Here is Socks (Charolais x Angus sire, Shorthorn Dam) getting breakfast from his momma Sally

  I switch them all over to the big pasture on Monday Tuesday night because the small one was quickly getting eaten down and I want to spread it out so the grass stays ahead of the cows.  I hope the warm weather coming up speeds up the growth of the pastures, this cold is making for a very late spring.

The cows out for the first time this year on the big pasture.

I promise to be checking the woods everyday here for a while to check the growth of the mushrooms.  If I find any smaller ones I will be sure to mark them so I can check the growth rate and post it.  As I try to learn more about them I find it increasingly difficult as most website want to charge you to share any information other than spotting reports.  I will share everything I know as the season progresses, other than the locations of where I pick, so that more people can learn and understand about the Morels some of us love so dearly.

Have a great night everyone and happy hunting to all my fellow Mushroomers!

Kenny

Calf #7 and letting the cows out to pasture!

Well, I came home to find another little calf in the pasture today!  I was expecting Butterscotch to have one soon but wasn't sure when so I was thrilled to see she had her baby today.

Butterscotch's new calf

 She didn't mind to much when I walked up to check on her new baby.  She backed away and didn't put up any fuss at all. She already had it all cleaned up and dry and it was ready to go.  I am super excited to tell you it is a little girl.  I also am excited because Butterscotch is 3/4 Hereford and 1/4 Charolais.  Because she had her calf now I am positive that she was bred to her previous owner's Hereford bull.  So that makes her calf mostly Hereford!  I can't wait to see what the results will be from breeding the calf and butterscotch both to my bulls.  

Hereford x Charolais dam  and Hereford Sire.  Female calf

Since I was over on the other side of the creek to tag the new baby I decided to go ahead and let everyone out into the smaller pasture tonight.  They will most likely only be there for a day or two at most so I don't stunt the hay.  I have about 6 bales of very low quality hay left and then I am out so I wanted to get them some good green grass to boost their energy and keep them happy and growing well.  I am uploading a video of them coming to the pasture and I will try to remember to post the link tomorrow.

We are heading to pick mushrooms Sunday.  My buddy Richard is telling me they are starting to explode down there from the rain and I am pumped to go find some for a change instead of just hunting!

Talk to you again soon, hopefully with a tummy full of morels!

Kenny