You can sure tell it's fall - it gets dark so early these days! Glen got home just after 7:00 tonight, but I'd already gone out and done chores for him because it's just so much easier when there is still daylight to see what you're doing. It won't be long, though, that it will even be dark when I get home shortly after 5:00. It's my pet peeve about winter - I can take the cold and the snow, but I need sunlight! I'm sure I must be solar powered.
Much as we're not overly excited about winter setting in, we are hoping for something more wintery than that sissy stuff we had last year. Oh, for sure, the mild temperatures were easy to handle, but we didn't get enough snow to make things white. On the one hand, Glen loved a winter that he didn't have to clear the yard of snow to be able to move machinery or get the car out of the garage, but there wasn't enough snow-melt to fill any of the watering holes on the place. All summer long - a very hot and extremely dry one - we've watched what water there was go down, down, down. We moved the cattle back from 21 because of no water. We can't use certain fields for grazing because there's no water there. And even the watering hole that the herd has been using is next thing to dried up. They can still wade out through the mud for a drink, but that's not going to last much longer. We've had a few inches of rain through September, but not near enough to replenish the surface water.
We have the main duggout left. It is the biggest and has only been used by a few animals over the summer so it's looking pretty good right now. We're really having to think about what to do with our calves this fall, though. Most cattle producers sell the calves off right after weaning them. They go off to feedlots to be "fed up" to market weight. Up until this year, we've kept ours and fed them out ourselves; we have the grain and the set up to handle the animals and the price we get for finished cattle is significant. This year, though, we don't know if we want to risk watering a whole bunch of feeders when we don't know if the snow situation is going to be any better this winter. We could end up having to decrease the size of our cow herd next year if there's not enough water. We haven't made the decision yet, but the plan is to separate the calves from their mothers next weekend, so we'll have to come up with a plan pretty soon.
I've got the yard work pretty well done up for another year. I spent last weekend out cleaning up puppy debris. I don't know what the thrill is to haul everything movable (and some things I don't even know how he does move them) up on the front lawn. It's like he's into exterior design and the mess is his own personal touch to his property. Unfortunately, I really don't care for his "look", and it's all been carted off. He looked pretty sad while I was doing the cleaning - taking time out occasionaly to tell him not to do it again - and to his credit, the front lawn has remained clear of his treasures. The space down near the garden, on the other hand, seems to be growing its own collection of empty pop bottles this week.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
WET, BUT WONDERFUL
The prairies are getting rain today - it's about time, it has been dry for way too long. I'm sitting in the office (which is right off the garage in this house) and listening to the rain fall on the metal sheeting roof. The whole house is covered in metal, but of course the ceilings are all insulated so the sound of falling rain is muffled. The garage, on the other hand, has just the bare roof and the sound amplifies like being in a drum. I suppose it could get annoying to have that sound thundering down constantly, but after this long dry summer, the sound is like music to our ears at the moment.
The rain gauge says we've had over an inch so far, and the weather channel says we can expect at least another 24 hours of the same, so we're happy. There are a few acres of crop still out there - some late flax - but rain won't hurt that and it will do wonders for the fall seeded crops and the pastures. I can't see it filling up the duggouts and watering holes though, the ground will drink this all in - there will be none left over to lay on top of the ground.
I spent Monday and Wednesday evenings our digging potatos as fast as I could in the fading light. It was a toss up if I should even be harvesting them yet - on the one hand the skins were just barely toughening up - will they keep well like that? Or, if I leave them in the ground and have to dig them up later, wet and almost frozen, will they keep any better then? I guess time will tell, they've all been dug and hauled up to the house. I wish our cold room was a few degrees colder - its "keeping" ability is not the best.
While I was digging on Wednesday, Glen was busy cleaning out his quonset so that he could get his machinery in. I went over to help him back the combine in - in order to make room for the other things that have to go in, it had to be as far against the back wall as possible without scraping the lights off the ceiling, or bending the auger on the sloping walls. By the time I got back to the garden, I could barely see where my last row of spuds were. I'm sure glad that job is done! Muddy potatos are no fun at all.
The leaves have make their turn now, and some trees have begun to shed. I love the way that poplar leaves look like golden coins tossed across the green carpet of grass.
We've put our two herds together now and the bulls are all getting along pretty well. The first day we kept a pretty good watch on them, just in case they got to serious fighting, but it was just a case of seeing who was the toughest - and there is no contest there. What they do is mostly make noise - bawling or a kind of gutteral noise like growling - and locking heads together and pushing each other around. We have two younger bulls who are about the same size so they actually have a contest going on in the strength department, but when they're feeling really full of themselves, they go over and challenge Big Louis. That's good for a laugh - he outweighs them almost two to one, and when he digs in and starts to push, they are just along for the ride.
The bull we've had the most trouble with is our neighbour's Texas Longhorn. Now there is a nasty animal with big horns and bad attitude. Twice he's been over to "visit" and been sent packing. Jesse gave Glen a 20 foot long bull whip for Father's Day this year - it's come in handy.
The rain gauge says we've had over an inch so far, and the weather channel says we can expect at least another 24 hours of the same, so we're happy. There are a few acres of crop still out there - some late flax - but rain won't hurt that and it will do wonders for the fall seeded crops and the pastures. I can't see it filling up the duggouts and watering holes though, the ground will drink this all in - there will be none left over to lay on top of the ground.
I spent Monday and Wednesday evenings our digging potatos as fast as I could in the fading light. It was a toss up if I should even be harvesting them yet - on the one hand the skins were just barely toughening up - will they keep well like that? Or, if I leave them in the ground and have to dig them up later, wet and almost frozen, will they keep any better then? I guess time will tell, they've all been dug and hauled up to the house. I wish our cold room was a few degrees colder - its "keeping" ability is not the best.
While I was digging on Wednesday, Glen was busy cleaning out his quonset so that he could get his machinery in. I went over to help him back the combine in - in order to make room for the other things that have to go in, it had to be as far against the back wall as possible without scraping the lights off the ceiling, or bending the auger on the sloping walls. By the time I got back to the garden, I could barely see where my last row of spuds were. I'm sure glad that job is done! Muddy potatos are no fun at all.
The leaves have make their turn now, and some trees have begun to shed. I love the way that poplar leaves look like golden coins tossed across the green carpet of grass.
We've put our two herds together now and the bulls are all getting along pretty well. The first day we kept a pretty good watch on them, just in case they got to serious fighting, but it was just a case of seeing who was the toughest - and there is no contest there. What they do is mostly make noise - bawling or a kind of gutteral noise like growling - and locking heads together and pushing each other around. We have two younger bulls who are about the same size so they actually have a contest going on in the strength department, but when they're feeling really full of themselves, they go over and challenge Big Louis. That's good for a laugh - he outweighs them almost two to one, and when he digs in and starts to push, they are just along for the ride.
The bull we've had the most trouble with is our neighbour's Texas Longhorn. Now there is a nasty animal with big horns and bad attitude. Twice he's been over to "visit" and been sent packing. Jesse gave Glen a 20 foot long bull whip for Father's Day this year - it's come in handy.
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