From the Barns: Another wild ride

It looked like we were in real trouble. Our pastures looked like Wyoming — big, yellow and dormant. Cornfields had everything from great corn to stuff that had not sprouted at all, but uniformly desperate for a drink. But just as it looked like it was over for this year, the Good Lord sent that wonderful rain in quantities sufficient to make everything green and flourishing like there had never been a dry day.

It’s been so wet now we are struggling to find days to get manure pumped on the wheat stubble so we can plant our late corn. The wheat harvest went great. Neighbor Dan has become the local custom harvester since he has a new combine with no leaks and he blew through our wheat and on down the road just like they do it out in the Wheat Belt. The wheat must like it dry. It yielded almost 90 bushels and we’ve been baling the most beautiful straw to boot. For a while, I thought the wheat might outyield our corn until the recent rains saved the day.

We got the heifer calves through the chute for the first time early so we could get fly tags and vaccine in them ahead of face fly season. Those little calves out of first calf heifers get picked on mightily by the flies, but so far we’re ahead of any pinkeye outbreak. The flies seem to have been on hold, but now that it has rained, they are making up for lost time both on the cows and at the feed yard. We have been spraying like crazy, but it seems like the flies enjoy the frequent baths and the treatment we are using has been in vain. I expect we have some resistance in our fly herd and need to switch up our treatment options.

The fat market continues to hold and corn prices have moved lower making our margins more favorable. Feeder cattle prices are over the moon and it’s hard to say where it may stop with the cheaper corn prices forecast at harvest. We are in for another wild ride.

While the grandkids are off school and in between camps and vacation, we are building fence and getting all the calves their first round of vaccine. These cooler mornings have been welcome to get our work done and the hot afternoons are made for growing corn and swimming in the lake anyway. It all works out pretty well.

I’ve been busy staying ahead of the fencing crew by clearing the brush out of the fencerows to be rebuilt. Removing all the dead ash trees is a pain, but I hate to leave them standing next to the brand-new fence where they are sure to come down in the next windstorm and undo all our hard work. The emerald ash borer has done its work here and made a big mess of our woodlots. I wish there was some use for all those trees. We’ve got plenty of them.

I really enjoy fence building. Not only do I get to spend time with the guys, but when you get done there’s a great feeling of satisfaction of a job well done that will last for many years. We’ve gone to using great big hedge posts cut out of the same pasture we’re fencing. I can’t express my disappointment in many of the store-bought treated posts we’ve planted in the last 25 years, but suffice it to say they’re junk compared to a good hedge or locust post. Additionally, now that I’m old enough, every time we finish a stretch of fence, I know I will never have to do that again — an unsung benefit of living a full life.