It's been a few days since our last entry, but believe me, we have NOT been on vacation! Very early mornings and late nights doesn't allow much time for anything in between. All but five acres of corn are in the ground. The last field is going to be a couple of days in the waiting because it's so wet. There are many fields around us that haven't been planted yet. We had a fairly dry week last week, but when the rain came, it just kept coming. All of a sudden we find ourselves at the end of May with still more corn to put in the ground. Time sure has flown by!
It won't be long and it'll be time to get the discbine (hay cutter) out. Grease it up, check bearings and blades and get it ready to pull out to the field. Almost the entire first cutting of hay will be cut, chopped and blow in the silo for haylage. There should be plenty left over for baling, but we like to have the nice first tender hay put in the silo. We fill it all the way to the top, adding an additional load each day as it settles. It's amazing how much the haylage will settle as it gets near the top. Just about the time you think you have it full, it's settled a door on the silo and we need to go back out and chop another load. But when you think of how much feed it takes to feed the cows all winter, you need to have it full in order to make it through until pasture the following spring.
One nice thing with all this rain, we have plenty of pasture for the cows and horses. It's so neat to ride down into the woods and swamp and find the cows munching in grass up to their bellies. When they're full, they like to bed down in the birch grove just below the hill to the east of the barn. They soak up the sun that filters through the trees and quietly chew their cud, fading in and out of sleep. That's what makes milk - content, healthy, comfortable cows. Most of them know when it's time to head back to the barn for evening milking. Just like kids in a candy store, though, the heifers like to drag their feet, taking their time for one of those last mouthfuls before they're brought in the cow yard for the evening. They have plenty of hay to keep them full at night until they go out to pasture the next morning, but who wants broccoli when you can have ice cream?!
The horses are also getting fat and shiny with all of this good green grass. I have to watch them carefully so they don't get too much. Horses can founder with too much of a good thing. They complain a bit when I bring them up from pasture each night, but once they hear the grain bucket rattle and the hay being put in their stalls - they're all lined up at the gate ready to come in!
No comments:
Post a Comment