MID AUGUST

The crickets are chirping at night and the grasshoppers are buzzing in the tall grass - late summer sounds for sure - but with the timely rains we've been having everything is still pretty green; it looks more like July than August. I believe that with the beginning of this next week farmers with the early crops of peas and lentils will be into harvest, and the barley will follow closely after that. Another summer season is winding down.

We only have oats and barley to combine, and it went in so late that it will be a fair few more weeks before it's time to harvest them. As we only grow grains to feed the cattle with, getting it off in perfect condition is not a necessity, the cows don't seem to be bothered by a rain stain or a little sprouting. Actually, the human end user of most grains would be hard pressed to spot any of the tiny deviations from perfection that grain companies dock farmers for. I'd bet no one could tell the difference in taste between #1 and #2 hard red spring wheat once it was ground into flour, but you'd better believe there is a difference in the prices the farmers were paid for it.

Glen finished baling hay last night. That's one job we can call complete for the 2008 season. We will hire the hauling and stacking done and then can move on the next thing. Glen and I were out this morning moving electric fence wire (actually, it looks more like ribbon, but don't touch it if it's plugged in!) . The youngest of the three herds have eaten their way through the little calving pasture and on through one pie shaped slice of oats. The job this morning was to cut them another piece of the pie to hold them over for another week or so. Glen has become a firm believer in small paddock rotational grazing - only give them a little bit at a time. Cows tend to trample more than they eat and the more space you give them, the more they waste.

After we had moved that bunch into new eating grounds we toured up to 21 to move the big herd over to their next pasture. You can see that they are starting to get their pastures eaten down pretty evenly - when they heard the quad's motor they all turned and made for the center gates. They know what our presence means - they get a whole new field to graze! Once they catch on to that idea you never have to go find them, or chase them, ever again. There were the last of the new babies there today. In fact one of the mamas must have been busy birthing hers when we moved the herd last time because she and a beautiful caramel-colored baby heifer were locked away from the other cattle. The mother was sure making sure she wasn't missed this time! She wasn't short on feed, but cows are herd animals and don't like life on their own. And, with a baby to protect, it is much easier to keep an eye out for coyotes if there are lots of pairs of eyes watching all the time.

Lastly we took a drive through the pasture with our other herd in it. They've got a bit of eating left on it, but it will be good to get those bales moved off the hay ground so that we can run them all out there. It's late summer and the lush growth is past. The weatherman says that we're supposed to be getting rain tonight and tomorrow and I'm hoping that this will come true - everything could use a good drink.

So far, throughout this summer of destructive storms, we have been dodging that bullet. Oh, we've had the noisy nights and the spectacular light shows, and one night we even got a few dime-sized hail stones, but compared to some other places, this is next to nothing. By the middle of July Saskatchewan Crop Insurance was saying that almost every rural municipality had put in hail claims - it's been a wild summer no matter where you lived. The most damage we got was some big ragged holes in the leaves of my sunflowers, potatoes, and squash plants.

I guess, if it's going to rain, I'd better get out there and pick the rest of my raspberries. I'm all slathered up with sun screen so there's no time like the present! Love the berries, hate the thorns.