Sweet Corn Sprouting

We raise sweet corn to sell on the roadside. It is good to see it growing despite the cold wet spring. The heat over the past week has helped a lot.

Wordless Wednesday

It is still plenty cold and wet. We have not been able to get any spring planting done yet.

Wordless Wednesday -- Snow

Third Crop Hay

This photo was taken on 09/22/10. As of 09/28/10 we finished baling hay for the year. We had a late start on hay this spring and are still behind. With the days getting shorter and the nights extremely cooler third crop hay can be hard to get dried down to below 20% moisture needed to bale high quality hay. Usually when baling larger bales it is important to keep the moisture below 16% but we purchased a preservative unit a few years ago that sprays a buffered acid on the hay and allows us to bale with more moisture. We purchase at least one 270 gallon tote every year at the ever increasing price of $2300.

Started cutting hay today despite the chance of rain tomorrow. The field we are working on is very heavy, starting to lay down, and has many wet gopher mounds so we hope to get it cut before it gets any worse. The drier the hay gets before it rains the more damage is done so usually a little rain the day after cutting won't hurt too much.


I followed my dad around and cleaned the dirt out of the swather with a scraper every 5-10 minutes for 1-2 hours. Some of the dirt stuck a lot worse than what the picture shows. Luckily it gradually got better as the ground dried and we got away from the outside of the field.

Mike Rowe on the challenges faced by farmers

Here is a link to Mike Rowe's blog post where he discusses the need to support agriculture now and in the future. Mike is doing his part to help educate others that well funded special interest groups have gained too much power with their money. And that there is a huge disconnect between the general population and the farmers (2% of the population) that feed our nation and others also.

http://www.mikeroweworks.com/2010/05/the-future-of-farming/

"On Dirty Jobs, I’m no expert, and I’m even less of one here. But I have a theory, and it goes like this – all jobs rely on one of two industries – mining and agriculture. Every tangible thing our society needs is either pulled from the ground, or grown from the ground. Without these fundamental industries there would be no jobs of any kind. There would be no economy. Civilization begins with miners and farmers, and polite society is only possible when skilled workers transform those raw materials into something useful or edible."

First official Cub Scout Farm Tour.

We use army helmets to feed our calves with. The boys grabbed the helmets and conquered the straw stack!


"I am not putting my finger in there!"



"I am not putting my finger in there EITHER!"