Fall's Work

We have completed our harvest.  The last crop in was the corn. We had all of our corn chopped for silage.  Christopher's corn was combined.  It was wet but will be rolled (cracked) to be fed to the cattle in the feedlot. 

We have weaned all of the calves.  We do this in a multiple step process.  I thought I had written about it before, but I guess not.  I will have to try to do it next year.  Anyway, weaning, as you probably can guess, is when the calves and cows are separated so the calf will no longer nurse the cow.  We now have the calves in the feedlot.

Our cattle have been enjoying fall grazing.  There are some grazing a barley field and others are in the corn, pea & canola fields.  After we harvest these crops there is still some waste.  There are ears of corn & pea pods laying in the fields that fell off the plant for some reason, the barley & canola seeds that did the same and have now started growing again making for lush, green grazing.  This is a great way to add value to the crop (that would have otherwise been wasted) and to extend the amount of time that we do not have to feed them hay.  We did get a couple of inches of snow Saturday/Saturday night but that was not enough to end this "aftermath grazing".    Some of the snow has settled away and I hope for a bit of sunshine to take care of the rest that is out in the open areas. 

The men have been busy working on fence repair. There are some new fences being built and others are mended.  Some of this fence was around a field of Sudan Grass that was planted as a cover crop (to help dry out soil that did not get planted in the spring).  We had to wait until after November 1 (government regulation) to utilize this crop.  We plan to let the cattle graze this field as another way to help preserve our winter hay supply.  Our hay supply is a little short this year due to all of the rain we've had.  Most years we can cut hay in sloughs (marshy ponds) and get quite a bit of hay, but this year they still had water in them. 

The forecast sounds like the ground will freeze up this week.  Once that happens we will get busy hauling the hay and straw home.  

No photos this time, but it was time for a farm update instead of Andy!!

Week 35/52: Yellow Field Pea Harvest

The grain harvest has finally begun at NoDak Herefords.  With spring planting being late, so too is the harvest.  Brett is a farmer through and through.  He did a majority of the planting, all of the spraying and now is running the combine.  (Hmmm, reminds me of the story of Chicken Little!)   Don't worry, others on the farm have kept quite busy too.  Christopher seems to be a full time rancher.  There are always cattle to check and fences to repair.  He is running here and there all of the time!  Mark has been swathing canola.  I am the "go-fer"  which means I try to help any of the guys when they ask.

I did get a few photos to share with you.

Andy thinks he can drive the big combine.  Brett is not so sure!

 

Here is a view of the combine.  It is in a field of Yellow Field Peas.  The plants look just like the peas you can grow in a garden.  We wait for them to dry down.  When the peas are hard and dry enough it is time to combine.  The front part of this combine has a special type of header.  It is called a flex head.  A flex head is designed to skim across the ground and be flexible enough to (hopefully) go over any rocks and just "scoop up" the pea plants & pods.  All of this goes through the combine.  The seeds end up in the hopper (holding tank) and the rest gets spat out the back.  If we are lucky, our cattle will get to come into these fields this fall.  They will love to eat the seeds that got away!  Also any green plants that will be there.  This is called "after grazing".

 

 

Brett had filled the hopper on the combine with peas so it was time to dump them into the semi.  Once the semi gets full it will be taken to a storage building (grain bin) on our farm.  The peas will stay in storage until we decide it is time to sell them.  Marketing is vital to running a profitable farm and is quite time consuming.  It is one thing that we always need to improve on.  We hope the peas are 'food quality' which means you could end up eating peas raised at NoDak Herefords!

Week 30/52: Andy checking the canola

This week for my Andy photo-a-week topic he got to check the canola. 

 

Canola is one of the crops that we raise at NoDak Herefords.  The canola seed is a small, round, black seed.  Canola is related to mustard so the seeds are similar.  As you see in the photo, it has yellow blossoms.  The plants are blooming an especially long time this year.  The longer they bloom the more likely to have a more bountiful crop.  Canola likes the temperature to be a bit cooler than average (avg high this time of year is low 80's).  Our temps have been low to mid 70's.  So the canola and I are both happy!!  We sure hope for a great canola crop as we did not get all of our acres planted due to overly wet conditions.   After the plant is done blooming we will see long, skinny pods which is where the seeds are 'stored'. 

 

Canola is mainly used to make oil.  If you buy anything with canola oil it is possible that the canola came from our place!  It will be a while until harvesting this crop, after all it is still blooming.

The tale of six big pigs

We had some visitors while working on the combine today.  I thought you might get a chuckle out of them too.

 

Mark & Brett are busy working when the pigs show up.  I was helping too but just had to get the camera out and take some photos!  Christopher has six pigs who live on this old farmstead that we own.  They got tired of their barn and broke out a few weeks ago.  Christopher knew they would not go too far as they liked the feed and water in their barn.  So, they are "free range pigs"!!  One afternoon Christopher received a phone call from a neighbor who had to come through the yard to get to his hay field.  The pigs decided to follow him around while he cut his hay so C. had to go get them (and they don't chase that well)!! 

At least we learned that they are people friendly.

 

They are also curious.  Here one is tasting the scoop shovel.

 

 

 

But the guys needed as little break so had to give Wilbur some attention.

 

 

 

They are eating the canola off of the combine header.

 

Just hanging out with us.

Wilbur really loves attention!!

 

Linking to Farm Photo Friday

 

 



Our Labor Day

Labor Day for many means going to the lake and relaxing.  For many North Dakota farmer/ranchers that is not the case as we are harvesting.  However, Mark & I got the chance to go to the lake ... well, ummm, a few sloughs, but it was water - no relaxing however!!  Sunday evening a neighbor called to tell us our cows were out.  Mark & I got there and found it was cattle from two of our pastures.  I don't understand why they think they have to get out as they are belly deep in grass.  Anway, we each took one batch of the herd and returned them to their respective pastures.  We got back in the house about 10 PM  (yes, it was dark and there are no working headlights on the 4 wheeler providing a bit of a challenge for hubby).

Monday AM, after getting the combine serviced, the trucks emptied AND the auger moved to the next bin, Mark & I finally were able to go fix fence while Brett combined canola.   It was quite easy on one pasture - just close the gate!!  Hmmmm, wonder who left that open?  Anyway, the other needed fence built around the slough.  Luckily, the posts had already been installed so we just had to roll out the wire and get it stapled to the post.  We are using plastic posts (made from recycled items) so we could just staple the electric wire right to the post instead of using plastic offsets.    Before we got this project done, some of the cows got out again - this time into our corn.  The corn is about 10 foot tall so it is difficult to find them AND chase them, but Mark and Rufus got the cows out of the corn and back into the pasture.  We finished building the fence and hooked up the power for the fence (solar charger with battery).  Hopefully they will stay in now.  Lucky for us, most the crops around our pastures have been harvested, but it is still not good for them to be out.

Mark "at the beach".  Three years ago we were pumping water out of a dugout just to Mark's right.  Last year there was so much water here that we couldn't use our cross fences. 

This year the water is going down.

Mark hanging the electric wire.  You can see how high the water was last year by looking at the posts here.

This girl knew to find some shade to cool off. 

Done

Just wanted to post a quick note to let you know that the crop is all planted.  This year the crops are:  canola, barley, Hard Red Spring Wheat, Corn (probably all silage corn) and sweet clover (which we won't be able to hay until next year). 

The alfalfa is getting close to blooming so it will be time to get the haying equipment ready.  Most of the cattle are out to pasture, but we still have to work the calves (brand and vaccinate them).

There is always plenty to do.  Today, Mark & I are off on a road trip to deliver some recycled plastic fence posts to Kulm, ND.  We will be back home tonight.  In the meantime, the "boys" will take care of the livestock!   It is supposed to rain for a few days now so I hope that we can all get a little rest!