We saw the sun today - it's been like forever since it's shown its face. We are just 50 miles northeast of Melita, Manitoba where they got from 5 to 12 inches of rain in one day and small tornados touched down last week, and only 12 miles southeast of a 7 inch rainfall happened last Saturday afternoon. Compared to these places, we would have to consider ourselves high and dry, but if this is dry I'd sure hate to be them.
Most of our yard is under at least a few inches of water. I have cut grass up around the house a couple of times this spring, but the lower area where my garden is, (this year it looks more like a duck pond) is nothing but over long grass and mosquito habitat. The sump pump in the basement has been running steady for weeks, and the creek which normally only runs in the early spring with snow-melt runoff is flowing again.
The gravel roads are a mess of potholes and slippery mud and huge places in the fields are under water. Glen had just finished fertilizing 80 acres to plant flax in when this flood started, but if (or when) it ever dries up enough to be able to seed that ground he'll be implementing "Plan B" which is to plant a much faster maturing crop like oats, or something he can cut for cattle feed. If it goes that far "Plan C" is a fall seeded crop like fall rye or winter wheat. If he didn't have all that expensive fertilizer in already he'd probably go with summerfallow.
We gave up watching the Weather Channel because it was never good news so i don't know what we can expect this coming week. I know that I have bedding plants that are going to rot in their trays if I don't get them out soon. I did get some in the ground on Monday night. For some reason that night the mosquitos left me alone and I worked as long as I could before it got too dark. I don't look forward to the next go round; with all this water and a few warm days the bug population is exploding with every passing minute.
At least the cattle have been moved out to pasture now, and Glen has spent two days trying to track down the drain on his electric fencer. He's got it up to 3/4 strength now - not that it matters - the cows have all tried it when it was really putting out and they remember it's not something they want to touch again. By Sunday night our new bull will be delivered and cattle duties will be done, except for the odd check, until late in the fall.
2 comments:
Jocelyn;
If you and Glen have to continue to delay planting, and have to plant something conducive to fall...will you lose much money by doing so? Has the inclement weather caused revenue problems for many farmers in your area?
Hi Dave, We are up to "plan B" now. Yesterday morning Glen went out and cleaned the flax seed out of his seeder and filled it with oats. Just as I got home from work he pulled out into the field - at first he thought it would be dry enough to go but the first low spot told him different. He came back to the yard and parked hoping that he can maybe try in a couple more days.
If he would have been able to seed flax (Plan A) we would have harvested it and sold it for income, the oats - if we ever get in will likely be for green feed, which means we won't let it ripen and bale it for feed. As we have plenty of other cattle feed we would probably sell at least some of it. I don't know what the dollar return would be on this as we have never done it before.
The weather forecasters have been predicting terrible storms for Saskatchewan all day but it seems that it's the western half of the province that's getting it. We hope it passes us by so that we can get back in the fields. We already have water laying every where and the mosquito population is out of this world!
Post a Comment