Leave It To Beaver

Leave It To Beaver.

Seeing an actual beaver may be as elusive as finding re-runs of that favorite '60s and '70s TV show (1957-1963), since we don't have Nick at Night or TV Land on our satellite television subscription.

If I could find my local beaver, he wouldn't look a thing like Jerry Mathers. Instead, he might look something like this:

Photo from Wilderness Classroom

We do, however, see evidence that the Beav and maybe a friend or two are at our Peace Creek pasture. Just like the TV character, our local Beaver is leaving a trail of mischief behind him.

The beavers have built up a dam at our Peace Creek pasture. It's a little hard to tell from a 2-D photo, but the conglomeration of sticks, cattails and other "treasures" has backed up one portion of the creek, making it about 2 feet higher on the left-hand side of the dam than on the right-hand side.

I asked my resident wildlife expert about why they would do that. He's not exactly sure either, though his best guess was that the beavers like the deeper water the dam provides.

Even though we don't see the beavers, they leave plenty of evidence that they are in the area.

 

They do have a pretty place to hang out.

I've always said the working conditions are beautiful on The County Line. It appears they agree.

***

NOTE - These are crazy times we are living in as the U.S. practices "social distancing" to try and combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus. I'll have some thoughts on that and on March as Ag Month. But, before the edict against gatherings of 50+ came down, Randy & I attended the Kansas Master Farmer/Farm Homemaker meetings and banquet. Since I was last year's secretary, I've been working on those minutes instead of blog posts. I wrote this post before we left for Manhattan. More to come ...

Rainy Days and Mondays (and Tuesdays and ...)

I've always been a big fan of The Carpenters. And they were never more accurate when it came to the lyrics of one of their popular songs, "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."

Let's expand that thought: Rainy days and Mondays (and Tuesdays and Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) are currently getting me down. 

I feel a little guilty complaining about the rain. My Australian farmer blog friend, Lynda, is in the midst of a drought. It wasn't all that long ago that I was writing about being in a drought designation here. (We were officially out of the drought in August when we got 6 inches of unexpected rain during the month.)

Since last Friday, we have received between 7.80 and 9.10 inches of rain. I was going to wait to take photos until the rain quit yesterday. But it never did. And, come to think of it, all that the grayness kind of matches the mood of farmers who are worried about planting wheat and harvesting fall crops. Even my favorite perpetual optimist's mood is flagging (or drowning).

 It's been a long, long time since Peace Creek was up this far.

The photo above is looking west, where we have a pasture and lots that border Peace Creek.

It's good we don't need to get in or out of there at the moment!

This summer, I could barely see the water in the creek. Currently, that is not a problem.

Looking east from the bridge

Last week, I drove to the Peace Creek bridge on the Zenith Road to take a photo of the sunset. I had to try to get the reflection in the water.

 This is looking the same direction on Monday afternoon.

The photo below is Peace Creek looking east from the Zenith Road.

We had planted about half of our 2019 wheat crop before the rain started. We can now be classified as Quivira National Wildlife Refuge South, since ducks and geese have "parked" on mud puddles in the wheat fields. We probably will need to replant some of it, but we may not be able to get on the ground in time.

 

The Zenith Road (photo below) has water running across it in one location. It's a "major" thoroughfare, at least for us. (Yes, it's a dirt road for a portion of it, but it's still a major road for us.)

 

There's more rain in the forecast today, though it's supposed to clear up on Wednesday. However, there are more raindrops on the map on Friday and Saturday. 

With apologies to my Australian friend and anyone else experiencing drought: Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day (and not for awhile)! Or at least shift to somewhere it's needed.

Rainy days and Mondays (and Tuesdays and Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) are getting me down.

Work Conditions

The last few weeks included some long days of cattle round ups, sorting and hauling. This life on a farm doesn't include a regular paycheck, and that can sometimes be disconcerting, especially when commodity prices are low and agricultural policy is uncertain with a new president.

Every day, my Facebook feed and farm magazines talk about consumers who believe we farmers are doing them harm with modern production practices and new seed technologies.

But in the midst of all that, I need to open my eyes to the blessings I do have. We certainly have a beautiful backdrop for work. I am blessed to see God's creation as it comes alive each spring - even if the smell of those blooming trees may sometimes be masked with the aroma of manure mixed with mud. 

Such was the day we rounded up cattle at Peace Creek. For this round-up, we borrowed a 4-wheeler from a neighbor and used our two 4-wheelers, too.

Even getting a group of reluctant mothers and babies to cross the creek gave me an opportunity to enjoy a morning where I could hear the birds singing and enjoy the white clouds against a vivid blue spring sky.

We finally got them to cross the water and we worked them toward the road, where we would drive them to the corrals to sort the mamas and babies.

I didn't take any photos of the time on the road, where we also detoured into tempting green wheat and alfalfa fields. Trying to drive a 4-wheeler and take photos at the same time as chasing cattle led to the demise of a camera this winter, so I stuck it in my pocket. It stayed there while we sorted mamas from babies.

 

 

Then I couldn't resist snapping a photo or two (or more) of the cute little faces.

Their mothers weren't thrilled to be separated from their offspring. We don't need to watch protests on the evening news. They happen in our cattle lots! They don't realize that we are actually protecting their babies.

We haul the babies separately from the moms so that the babies don't get trampled in the cattle trailers.

 

The Ninnescah Pasture looks like a pretty ideal "vacation" spot to me. It seems like a picturesque place to spend the summer.

The babies were ready to jump from the trailer to begin a new adventure.

However, they had to wait in the holding pens until all the mothers were there so they could reunite.

I couldn't resist my annual photo of these three trees as we left the pasture for another load of mamas. I may not get a paycheck, but the fringe benefits are pretty great.

Snowy Sunday

The cattle in the background were using the trees as a windbreak from the north wind on Peace Creek.

Sunday was a day not fit for man or beast. But because we have "beasts" who rely on us, man (and woman) were out in the cold to check on mamas and babies.

I don't know how we got so lucky, but we didn't have any baby calves born yesterday. The babies already on the ground found plenty of ways to keep snuggled up and warm.

Number 503 was playing hide and seek in the feeder - and keeping warm at the same time.

These calves nestled down into the fresh straw the guys spread in the corral before the snow started.

 While mama ate, this calf had a snooze in the hay that littered the ground from the feed bunks. 

While the barn has seen better days, it does provide some shelter for cows and calves. During Randy's early morning check, he found several pairs inside the barn. After church, several babies were still inside the barn (though, in the photo, you only see the mama peering out into the falling snow).

The babies also get warmed up with milk on demand. Nothing like something warm in your belly to help feel all warm and comfy.

 

The farmer had to wait until after the cattle check to get something warm in his belly - our typical Sunday waffle lunch!

Cold "Snaps:" Wordless Wednesday

We've been having a cold snap for weeks, so on this Wordless Wednesday, I thought I'd share my own cold "snaps" - aka cold snapshots.

Today, flurries are on the meteorologist's weather map, but, later this week, we may have temperatures in the 50s. It will seem like a heat wave.

The ice on Peace Creek will be only a memory after the warm up. We'd better enjoy it while it lasts. I'm guessing this is only a brief reprieve from Old Man Winter.

On the Banks of Peace Creek

I'm no Laura Ingalls Wilder, so my little story about "The Banks of Peace Creek" will not be novel length.

Last evening around 6:45, as I was coming home from Hutchinson, I stopped on the old wooden bridge over Peace Creek. (There was a strategy behind the location of the photo op. I had on good shoes after doing interviews for a freelance writing job in Hutchinson.)

The overcast sky was still spitting the occasional raindrop, and the birds were singing their rendition of the "Hallelujah" chorus among leaves that look as though they've been colored by the Kelly Green crayon in a freshly-opened box of 64. During the past few days, we've gotten a total of 4.80 inches of rain here at our house.

Puddles in the road north of our house - (File photo)

There is water in the southwest corner of the basement again. And a bright yellow Tupperware bowl sits on top of the clothes dryer in the utility room to catch the water where the roof leaks. (We have tried in the past to correct both those problems.) This time, we have a new leak. Water started streaming in from the fireplace chimney. The old enamel roasting pan is currently in place until we figure out the latest quirk of our 1940s-era farmhouse.

We are thankful for the rain. And we also know that not everyone has been so fortunate to sweep up excess water from their house. I wish I could send some of the rain to Western Kansas or dole it out like a precisely-tooled budget, just when we needed it around here. When I looked at Facebook last night, I saw that Peterson Brothers Farms (of "I'm Farming and I Grow It" Youtube fame) had an additional 4 inches of rain in just an hour yesterday. As Greg Peterson stood on a country road that looked more like a creek, he was ready to share the abundance, too.

But it doesn't work that way. And, a year ago, the story here was drought, which left miles of the Rattlesnake Creek dry and reduced parts of the Ninnescah River to just a trickle. But this year, a week of rain, along with periodic rainfall since January, has boosted stream flows across South Central Kansas, along with replenishing farm ponds, reservoir levels and subsoil moisture. It takes awhile to recover from an extended drought, but this unusual July rainy season has helped.

 

This has not been a normal Kansas July. Monday's rain could bring July's total into the top 10 wettest Julys on record, according to Kansas State Climatologist Mary Knapp. That is drastically different from the past two Julys, which experienced 0.18 of an inch of rain in 2011 and 0.58 of an inch in 2012.

And, still, the drought is intensifying in Western Kansas, which has received only spotty showers. About 47 percent of Kansas, all in the western half, is in an extreme to exceptional drought - the highest ranking of the U.S. Drought Monitor.

I'm praying they get their turn at the rainfall soon. 

Rain Reigns

Into each life, some rain must fall.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thank goodness, Henry. Thank goodness. We were beginning to wonder after two-plus years of drought.

A total of 4.25 inches of rain fell on the County Line from Wednesday night into Thursday. We farmers would like to order rain like we order a Diet Coke. Maybe we didn't need the Big Gulp size all at once. But it sure helped quench our thirst for moisture. 

As we drove down the County Line last evening, Randy and I couldn't remember the last time we'd gotten 4-plus inches of rain all at once.

We were fortunate. We just got a Thomas Kincaid sunset illuminating storm clouds on Wednesday night, while North Central Kansas got tornadoes and hail.

We got plenty of wind, but not as much as my brother in Pratt County, who had an irrigation system overturned, as did a couple of his neighbors.

I realized after I looked at photos I took Wednesday night that I should have set a much quicker shutter speed. But the wheat field definitely demonstrated its dizzying resemblance to waves on the ocean during this time that "real" photographers call "the golden hour."

 Randy says the rain was ideal timing for filling wheat heads with grain.

However, in some places, the rain and wind knocked over wheat, giving the field a look of bedhead after a rough night of tossing and turning.

But it was like that only in areas of the fields.

This year, we'll have some wheat drowned out by mudholes. And that's OK. For the past two years, there have been no mudholes at all.

The ladybugs seemed to like the moisture Thursday evening.

 (I also found some ladybug larvae. I saw a photo in The Hutchinson News last Sunday and was surprised when I found one in our field, too. I don't think I'd ever seen that before. See photo below.)

The rain didn't just benefit the wheat crop. It also gave a boost to the corn ...

... and it helped fill waterways like Peace Creek and replenished grasses in pastures, where our cow-calf pairs are grazing this summer.

It gave an extra boost of growing energy to our alfalfa fields. A guy who checks oil wells in our area has been talking to Randy about this field south of our house. Randy planted it three years ago. With the lack of rain, we haven't ever gotten a good crop of alfalfa from it. However, Carl is saying that this is the year he'll get to see big windrows of hay and then lots of bales. We hope he's right.

Kansas truly is the Land of Ahs on a day after a rain.