Cow Stuff

We officially finished harvesting on the 14th.  C worked on picking up the last weedy stuff that they had swathed and J finished it up.  They had helped a couple of neighbors finish in between working on our last few acres.  It's a good feeling to be done.  M had been throwing around the idea of seeding some winter wheat especially after we got a 1/4" of rain but ultimately decided it wasn't a good idea and he wanted to be done farming for the year.  We do have a few acres to spray still.

We were very happy to switch gears and do some cow stuff.  First up was pregnancy testing our heifers.  We like to have them ultrasounded to determine their approximate due date and to do that accurately they have to be done in the first 90 days of pregnancy, and ours were right at that point.  We (or the vet) picked a beautiful day to be out working cows with a day that wasn't too cold or too hot or too windy.  A rare day in our world.

Our nephew and his friend from Rapid City were here for a week so they got in on the fun.  The first order of business was getting the heifers moved home.  It can sometimes be an adventure to get them out of their pasture as there is a coulee that can only be crossed on foot, and they are generally on the wrong side of it.  M took a bale on the pickup to try to lure them across if that was the case.  Lucky for us they were on the right side of the coulee and didn't even try to hide in the tree grove as they sometimes do.  So the move home was uneventful.

We had several hours to kill until the vet was scheduled to arrive so we mowed and cleaned up around the barn.  The 4-foot weeds in front of the barn door were unsightly and in the way.  We then headed to our house for lunch.  When we got back to the barn after lunch there were heifers everywhere.  We had left the gate between the holding pen and the corrals open so they could make their way in, but we had also left the barn doors open.  Ordinarily the gate in the barn would be closed, but the last one through it didn't close it (blame it on the rookies from the city) so the heifers, who are curious things, found their way into the corral then into the barn and then out the other barn door and into the yard.  Not much of a problem, however, since they were used to being fed in the corral all winter and ran right in as soon as someone opened the right gate.

The preg testing went pretty smoothly and we were pretty happy with the results of our artificial inseminating.  We've got some nice looking heifers.  It's hard to judge their size until we get them in the chute, and then we realized they are considerably bigger than last year's crop.  We pulled the bulls out and took them to the bull pasture and then trailed the heifers back to their pasture.  We plan to test the rest of the herd later in the month.

A few days ago our neighbor was ready to move his cows from CRP up to graze his hailed out pea and lentil fields so we helped with that.  It was a bit of a chilly morning so I dug out my hat with ear-flaps.  I was not taking a chance on being cold out there!  The first cold snap takes a little getting used to.  Again, we didn't have much wind so it was actually a pretty nice morning to be out on the prairie.

I finally had time to go to my mom's place to mow.  Thankfully, the grass wasn't too high so it wasn't a bad job, but it sure looked nice when I got it done.  As I was mowing an airplane buzzed me a couple of times.  It was my brother who flew in for the weekend.  An airplane overhead always takes me back to my childhood when my dad flew all the time.  It was great to have a visit with my brother.  He's such a great guy, and I don't see him nearly often enough.

We've had a couple of deaths in our elderly extended family in the past couple of weeks so have had some time with M's side of the family, and last night we attended a wedding for one of R's childhood friends so we've been out and about a lot more than is normal for us.  I guess it's good connect once in a while.  We forget that sometimes.

A Big Mess

Harvest is winding down, thank goodness, but we can't say we're done yet.  The guys are still helping some neighbors, and we have a little bit of our own left.  A year like this one just creates a mess.  No matter how dry it is the weeds seem to do just fine.  In fact, in a dry year they can be more of a problem since there is less competition from the crops that are struggling.  So, since we received close to 4" of rain with the hailstorm, the weeds have taken off....along with all the shelled out grain on the ground.  The result is that our fields are almost greener now than they were in June.  I keep joking that if the weather holds we could cut a second crop.  In reality, the sprayer is going to be really busy and will have to cover every acre...possibly twice, to conserve soil moisture and avoid a mess in the spring.

The weeds also create a problem in the fields yet to be harvested, making it more difficult to cut and raising the moisture of the grain.  And that is why we can't say we're finished.  We have some acres planted to a new variety of certified wheat and M is hoping to get some seed back.  He tried to cut it last week but the weeds were too much of a problem.  If they spray it with Roundup to kill the weeds it kills the germination of the wheat so it won't be any good for seed.  So, they are waiting a bit to see if the weeds dry up some so they can get those last few acres cut.

There was a big rain in the forecast for last weekend so we had a few calls from neighbors asking us to help them finish up.  One neighbor had had a heart attack so J went to help his son for a couple of days while M went to help another neighbor.  Our time with the rental combine is up now, though, so M is without a ride.  And then, the predicted 2" of rain ended up only being 0.2" here.  Gave us time to go watch Jared play football, though.

I was happy to put away my harvest lunch gear, but I didn't get off so easy.  Last week M was running around cleaning up some hailed out wheat and asked me to follow him with the grain cart.  That consisted of a little bit of driving and A LOT of sitting!  M's selling point on the plan was that we could have a nice picnic in the field; however, it took him longer than he thought to finish the piece he was on so we ended up eating our picnic lunch at home before heading west.  Everyone else had better things to do so I didn't mind helping out.  We didn't get home until dark so it was a long afternoon.  Good thing C suggested that I take two books along.  I was halfway through one and finished it and started the second.

You would think that we could take a breath and relax for a minute but that is not the case.  R is off hauling bales, J and C have been spraying, and M has had a lot of things going on including trying to get everything lined up for our crop insurance claims.  Our nephew from South Dakota is here this week so we're trying to keep him busy and hopefully we'll work on some of the fire debris cleanup.

I've been ready to get back to cow stuff and will be getting my wish when we pregnancy test our heifers tomorrow.  Yay!