The Last Hurrah: A Farm Update

"The last hurrah" for an aging alfalfa field has been a bright spot in a cloudy (literally) spring.

At the end of March, Randy planted oats in an alfalfa field he plans to retire after this growing season. An alfalfa field is productive about 7 to 8 years. This final cutting will provide a mixture of alfalfa and oats that we will bale up for cattle feed.

 

The excessive rain we've gotten since last fall has been a challenge in many aspects. But as Randy stood in the waist-high oats, it was obvious that like the Luke Brian song says, "Rain is a good thing" ... at least, for this field.

After Randy got to the end of a swath, he got off the tractor to tell me, "This is fun!"

Even the alfalfa has grown taller than normal, as it's tried to climb high enough to reach the sun from the canopy created by the taller oats. You can see its purple flowers among the oats.

The oats had reached the soft dough stage when they were swathed.

The oats and alfalfa are so lush that Randy had to move slowly through the field, more like swathing sudan than alfalfa.

Each swath left behind big windrows.

 

Unfortunately, we got 0.60" of rain on the swathed hay Friday night. Randy had hoped it would be dry enough to bale over Father's Day weekend, but the additional rain fall curtailed that schedule.

He was able to bale a field of alfalfa hay Sunday evening.

 Yes, working on Father's Day made him happy.

On Monday afternoon, the oat hay was dry enough to begin baling.

The first round yielded 14 bales!

I got another "This is fun!" from my farmer ... until the baler slugged and he was pulling hay out by hand. He wasn't able to bale past dark, since the hay got too wet.

OTHER FARM UPDATES 

 

BUMPER CROP ... TURTLES

Wet weather is not good for hay baling. But it's good for turtles. This snapping turtle was visiting our driveway last week. That's quite a distance from a creek, but there are a plethora of mudholes to visit in the vicinity.

WHEAT

June 13, 2019

The rain and cool weather have slowed Wheat Harvest 2019. By this time in most recent years, our combines have been rolling through golden fields. Here's the breakdown:

2010:  June 18
2011:  June 10
2012:  May 26 (an anomaly and the earliest harvest, by far, we've ever had)
2013:  June 21
2014:  June 17
2015:  June 20
2016:  June 15
2017:  June 12
2018: June 12
2019: ???????????????

This year, there's still a lot of green. The weather map shows the chance for more rain this week. The weather is something we can't control. Last fall, because of 15 inches of rain, we couldn't even plant 400 acres of what Randy had planned for our 2019 wheat crop. So the strange weather continues.

When we were taking photos in the wheat field last week, it felt more like spring than mid-June. The hot winds that blow in harvest weather just haven't been around much. On the other hand, the cooler weather helped fill the heads.

Another field - June 16, 2019

The last several days have started to feel like harvest weather. However, there is rain in the forecast today. According to the National Weather Service, severe thunderstorms are "very likely," with the possibility for hail and high winds. Scattered thunderstorms remain possible for all areas from Thursday night through Sunday.

So, at this point, we'll just have to see what happens. (I guess that's always true!)

MILO

 

 The milo crop is up and growing.

I took this photo as Randy was planting milo on June 4 (a different field). He planted 95 total acres of milo and 25 acres of silage.

June 13, 2019

It's off to a good start.

CORN

June 13, 2019

The prevented planting of wheat acres meant an increase to those we are devoting to corn on the County Line this year. We planted 600 acres of corn in mid- to late April on ground that Randy had planned to go to wheat this year.

April 2019

We are planting more corn this year than ever - 600 acres. That's not much when compared to other farmers, especially those with irrigated acres, but it's significant for us.

Another 12+ inches of rain in May means a lot of mudholes in the corn fields. The cool weather in early June also slowed down the growth. But it's making progress.

It would be nice if we could "bank" some cooler days and a little rain for when the corn is tasseling.

ALSO IMPORTANT - A COOKIE UPDATE

I spent an afternoon replenishing my cookie supply for harvest. I tripled my go-to cookie recipe and then divided the dough, making it into five different varieties. I bag some of them two-by-two in snack-sized bags and stick them in the freezer. That makes it easy to pull out bags for meals-to-the-field treats. Randy has bales piled. I have cookies.

Fresh Cut Hay Candles: Yes, It Is a Thing

Yankee Candle company has scents like "midsummer's night" or "sun and sand," but I didn't find a "hay field" scent.

However, Grey Horse Candle Co. has entered the market on this summertime fragrance. Here's what they had to say about their Fresh Cut Hay candle:

It's an obsession that only other horse people understand, the fresh aroma of this season's first cutting, baled into a big bundle of happiness. Experience the sensation of a warm breeze blowing through freshly cut hay fields. (Your horse will love it, too!)

Our Fresh Cut Hay fragrance is infused with natural orange essential oil, and captures the essence of summer florals and the fresh aroma of freshly cut grass. And with a hint of orange and sandalwood, it’s a natural scent you’ll love any time of the year!

I wonder if it's a big seller.  (They also have Wash Rack, Give a Horse a Carrot and Sweet Feed, to name a few. Hmmm ... interesting.)

We haven't needed a candle to capture the scent of freshly-cut alfalfa here on the County Line lately.

The purple blossoms add decorative flair to the subtle aroma. The butterflies like them, too, though on a summer evening, their traffic pattern seemed to have more take-offs and landings than a busy airport. It wasn't ideal for capturing their portraits. Ah well!

The guys have been working on our second cutting of alfalfa.

This has not been a good alfalfa hay year. Our first cutting yielded only 200 bales - half of our normal 400-bale yield.

 

Our lack of springtime and summer moisture has stunted the crop's growth. Our second cutting will be even smaller, though a few rain showers have generated enough growth to make a second cutting possible - even if it's thin.

The guys are still in the process of raking and baling the second cutting.

We use the alfalfa to feed our cattle. Usually, we raise more than we can use and sell the rest.

We'll have to see how the rest of the summer goes to see if we'll have any excess hay to sell.

Randy hopes to supplement alfalfa with sudan, pearl millet and silage for feeding our cattle. While last week's rains helped boost those crops, this week's 90+ temperatures are not helping those crops flourish either.

As with most things in farming, we'll have to take a wait-and-see position. The waiting is made a little nicer with scenes like this though. I just wish those clouds had some rain in them.

Farm Fresh Fragrance

The sun has risen on the 2016 alfalfa season.

 Looking west at first light - the other side of sunrise

Hay season has been a long time coming this year. Spring rains kept the swather out of the field in May. But the generous rainfall has produced thick windrows as the guys have swathed hay this week.

The fragrance of the purple blooms mixes with the perfume of the freshly cut alfalfa. It could be bottled under the name, "Farm Fresh." (It sure beats the aroma of diesel wafting off Randy's clothes after a repair job.)

Yellow and white butterflies play "tag" among the flowers, dancing too quickly for a photo on a warm June afternoon.

 

Randy called with a photo request after swathing a field Wednesday morning. He thought it was ready for a prairie portrait.

I think he was right.

For more information about our alfalfa crop - from swathing to raking to baling - click on this Kim's County Line link. 

Worth the Wait?

The farmer says it was worth the wait. But he wishes he'd had our new Case IH DC-163 mower conditioner (AKA, a pull-type swather) sooner.

"I should have traded five years ago," is his assessment. But he's not sure all the features were available five years ago.

We traded our old swather and baler last December after we'd used them 10 seasons. The baler came in time for our first cutting of alfalfa earlier this summer. But, due to a glitch at the dealership, we had to wait on the swather for several more weeks. At least it showed up before August, the date we were originally told.

There was rain in the forecast last week. Randy held off starting to put the second cutting of hay down on Monday and Tuesday, but it didn't rain. He put some down on Wednesday and Thursday, so, of course, it rained Friday morning - but only about 0.10" to 0.20." 

The long tongue connects it to the tractor, giving enough length to maneuver it without hitting the tractor.

Randy is not exactly sure why, but he's using one-third less fuel pulling the new equipment, probably because it doesn't pull down the tractor's engine as much.

The rotary knives are mounted on turtle shells. (When he told me that, I thought Ninja Turtles from Brent's preschool days - strong and quick!) Anyway, the knives are cutting the hay better. He says he's able to control the cutting height better as well.

The mower conditioner is 6 inches wider, which may not seem like a lot, but it does make for fewer trips up and down the field.

Randy says it seems to be built stronger and has fewer moving parts than our old one, which should make fewer things to go wrong and make it easier to fix. Well, we can always hope.

"And the paint is prettier."

You might think I would have said that. But it was actually my farmer.