We completed our AI process which went really well, put bulls out, moved cows several times, and finished our haying. There was not much hay to be had due to the cold spring and dry summer. We didn't even cut a couple of our usual hay fields. M kept telling me to plan a trip because haying wasn't going to last long, but I knew better. The CRP opened up for emergency haying and R had a friend who bought a few cows and has no equipment to hay with so we did the haying for him for half the hay. Win-win. By the time that was finished it was time to think about harvest.
We had one good day of cutting peas, 400+ acres, on Sunday, and C started desiccating lentils. The lentil plant will keep growing even as the seeds are dry and ready to harvest so they spray to kill the plant and dry it out to make it easier to cut and keep the moisture down. They didn't get too carried away because of the weather forecast for rain on Monday and Tuesday.
I went to work on Monday and when I left work it felt so hot and sultry--one of those days when you can feel a storm coming. I got groceries, went for my weekly visit with my granddaughter and made a stop to see the in-laws. As I drove out of town heading west I noticed the sky was very ominous, enough that I was afraid of what I was driving into. I tried to call R to see if he had put his pickup inside in case we had some hail but didn't get him so I ran into Richland to check. J and Jared were still there so we put a few more vehicles inside along with our pontoon boat. They were predicting 60 mph winds, and I didn't think the boat would do very well in that! Then J had to hurry home to get some of his stuff put in.
M was home when I arrived and I suggested we put the Jeep in our shed and he moved one of our pickups behind some grain bins. Then I moved all my flower pots into the house as the wind started to really howl. We weren't in the house long before all hell broke loose and it started to rain....hard, like an inch and half in 20 minutes hard....and then the hail began to fall. That's such a horrible sound to a farmer....and a farmer's wife. We were eating supper and M couldn't finish because he was sick to his stomach. There weren't too many hailstones really but they got bigger and bigger to about marble size or slightly larger. Thankfully, the wind kind of quit when the hail was falling which probably saved our west windows. We had a neighbor who lost theirs. I'm so thankful I made it home before it hit. Our neighbor to the north said she had an amphibious vehicle because the water was over the road when she was heading home. The rain came so hard and so fast that we couldn't see a thing out our windows.
We continued to have rain through the night and most of the next day along with high winds. We heard reports of trees uprooted and grain bins laid over. M and I didn't leave the house the whole day. Just before dark the skies cleared a bit, the winds let up, and we saw a bit of sunshine.
Yesterday was a day of damage assessment. M was worried about the cows while C and J did crop assessment. We have land spread out 35 miles from east to west and most of it was hit. Only the acres near Opheim appear to be unscathed thus far. Some is a total loss, and some we're not sure about yet. Is it worth the expense of trying to combine it or maybe hay it? Then there's the problem of getting it cleaned up and ready for next year if it's not worth running the combine over it. Hail makes a mess of this year's crop and can impact the following year's crop.
Then the company we rent a combine from called to see if we still wanted it. That was kind of hard call, too. We've paid half of the fee already and they would maybe forgive the other half due to an act of God, but he decided to take it so it arrived today. J had ordered three hopper bins that we may not need now, and they could be here any day and we have to take them. Another expense we probably don't need right now. M made a decision to take hail insurance on some of the better crop, but that's not the stuff that got hailed. He's really feeling the weight of his decisions and wonders how many more years he has left in him. When I hear him talking about a job at Walmart I know he's depressed! I was proud of J this morning when we were all together and he said, "we have to make a plan, we can't just quit". He's not usually a cheerleader, but he is a man of action.
We have our heifers in a pasture just to the north of our house so M went to check on them. There's a coulee through the pasture and the fence was broken on the west end and there were four heifers out in the ditch. Nice of them to wait until it was a nicer day to get out. He got them in and made a temporary fix until he could get some more supplies, and we spent our day fencing. That was just a small hole. The big one was on the east end of the coulee. Kade and I had some fun catching frogs while R and M were doing most of the work, and the dogs had fun in the water.
This is what we found at R's. Good thing we don't need to use those gates right now.
This is what my flower bed looked like on Monday....
And this is what it looked like on Tuesday. So sad.
R had been working on the river crossings down by Richland in preparation for moving cows this week and was afraid his work would be undone. We headed there this morning anticipating some work, but that all held up. The river is high, but we were able to move the cows.
Every now and then we have one cow that won't cross the highway, and we had one of those today. They see the white line and freak, I guess. After several attempts to get her across to no avail M and R were able to get her into a corral at our neighbors. R went to get the stock trailer and we loaded her and drove her across the highway and dropped her off again. We won't have that option when we try to get them out of that pasture so I hope she gets over it.
J and his uncle-in-law (?) went to the combines this afternoon to see if they could cut some lentils; however, they made a round and barely got enough lentils to fill the moisture tester.....which is a cup or two. So, they moved out of there to try another spot. It's not going to be a fun harvest, but it looks like it could be a short one! We'll keep our heads up and keep trucking along. After all, this is "next year country".
