Good morning everyone!!! I forgot what it was like to have a lazy Sunday morning without a bunch of work-related items nagging at me to be done! I actually have time to sit and make a post and give you all some updates.
On the first day of the rest of our lives, Zeus and I had a planning meeting during the sunrise on the back porch. I enjoyed my coffee during the meeting alone because he didn't want any. The meeting was pretty laid back and quite productive. Plans were made for the day and the week and after putting the kids on the bus we headed to the barn.
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| Zeus sitting on my lap...quite a big lap dog! |
So many projects in the first two weeks it was insane. Had to remove and install all new brakes and hubs for the flatbed trailer, custom baling and wrapping, get dad's old plow up and running, and the fair!
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| Lisa with Iron Man, her dairy beef feeder |
Lisa took both of her dairy beef feeders to the fair this year. She needs to put in a lot more work for showmanship if she wants to place in it. She starts out good but has to focus too much on the calf and cannot pay enough attention to the judge. If she gets them trained better she will do much better in the ring.
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| Lisa with Thor, her other dairy beef feeder. |
We have been waiting for the last three cows to have their calves, two of them are Lisa's and the other is Alex's cow. Alex's cow had her bull calf late last week and Lisa's cows had their calves during the fair last week as well. All three were huge calves and none of the mothers had any difficulties during calving which is awesome when dropping 115# calves! Thunder's cream coloring is a pretty strong gene as well as we are still getting creme colored calves out of his offspring including his granddaughters and great-granddaughters!
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| Charolais X Summitcrest Angus calf! |
Now, we thought we were done with calving as of last week....we were wrong! The belty in the middle of the picture below was checked as open by the vet twice over the winter and spring. We cycled her with everyone else this summer to sync them all together for breeding including a shot to make them all cycle. She even went thru heat and got bred....and still no inclination that she was bred.
Yesterday morning while discussing plans for the new shed with Sam we looked into the pasture at the cows and saw what we thought was a new calf. Upon closer inspection, we found that we did indeed have a new calf....from a cow that was supposed to be open!!!!!!
Pretty sure we are gonna call this one Lucky and I may change his mother to Houdini as she is the master of magic having hidden a calf from everyone for an entire pregnancy!
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As I mentioned we are heavy in the throes of renovating some of our worst fields for my dad's farms as well as mine. Step one is getting some lime and chicken litter on everything as there are several parts of both farms that have not had fertilizer or manure in my 30+ years and the majority of the farms haven't seen tillage or lime in my lifetime and some since my father was my son's age!
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| Eric Hutchison applying lime on dad's flatfield |
We were able to get ahold of a local guy who specializes in applying chicken litter and lime and is pretty darn good at it too!
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| Eric Hutchison applying lime to dad's flatfield. |
Now, my wife has a Ph.D. in soil science and I have 4 degrees in various parts of horticulture and crop science, so we both fully appreciate the benefits of no-till farming. However, sometimes you gotta bring out the big guns and turn the soil. This is one of those times. The fields we chose are ones that are very rough from years of tile line repairs, groundhog holes, blow out holes from tile lines being plugged up, hundreds of ruts in all directions from being stuck, and just generally messed up. The plan is to get them leveled up by this time next year so we can go back to no-till cropping.
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| Kubota M110GX hooked to my dad's 4 bottom Oliver Plow |
As I stated we are working on the worst fields....some of which are not completely fixed when it comes to drainage issues. Most of the tile lines we are working on were installed by my grandfather and great-grandfather with horses and shovels so they are not deep and are in need of maintenance.
Below is a great example of what we are dealing with. I was literally done and leaving the field and trying not to drive through the damp freshly plowed soil. In doing so I caught the edge of a blow out hole that was covered in tall grass and was immediately buried deep and stuck...immediately! When the tractor sunk into the mud the plow caught the dirt and sucked into the ground as well.
Luckily I had access to another 4 wheel drive tractor that is the same size as mine and was able to snag it out in the morning. Only damages being made were to my EGO! As this was the first time I ever remember getting stuck enough to need to be pulled out by someone else....in my life!
She was deep. Could've stepped off the bank onto the roof! This wet area is the last one we have to fix. To put it all into perspective, the tile lines that are messed up run under the road. They were installed before the road was a road like it is now, so we have to get creative to keep the repairs from being really expensive. We know we have one good 6" tile still working going under the road. The plan is to find it and then tie the blocked up 4" tiles into it at the road. If that fixes it we are good to go. If not, we are gonna have to have my buddy pound a hole under the road with his Air drive Mole and install a new 6" pipe under the road. We want to avoid that if we can!
Another wonderful thing about being your own boss is setting your own schedule! On Thursday morning we had a meeting with our Financial Advisor Hank! While getting ready in the morning to leave I remembered that the Kidron Livestock auction was Thursday as well so we took the livestock trailer with us. After our meeting, we went to find some feeder pigs as we still haven't had any from the sows that we currently have.
We were happy to find a couple of pens that we liked and were able to get them. They are already settled in and doing well!
Well, it has been raining for two days straight now as the remnants of the hurricane that hit the Gulf last week moves thru this area and up towards Maine. After this moves out we are looking at a week of dry weather. It was 95 degrees on Thursday, today it is 54 degrees today. I have already had enough cold weather and I am ready for the heat again!
Our newest concern is hurricane Florence, which is currently being projected to make landfall almost on top of our favorite vacation spot in Hatteras NC. My wife and I are planning a long weekend trip down to see our friends Eddie and Gail at the beginning of October to do some serious fishing. We may not be able to do that if they get hit by a category 4 hurricane this week as that will do some crazy damage to the area. Let's hope it changes it's path and stays in the sea!
Have a great week everyone!
Kenny
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