It's amazing the difference a year can make. Last year I would have given anything to get some rain. This year I am to the point I will give anything to get it to quit raining. It has rained the last 3 days here and we have gotten over 4 inches of rain. Total in the past month we have received over 8 inches of rain. More than all year last year I swear.
On Sunday I was gathering some drys and was riding across a hay field. It hadn't rained for 3 days at that point and the field was so wet the horse was sinking in to his hocks and water was splashing up at every step. It was like a damn swamp, that is for sure. No matter where I rode, a field or grass land, you would be going along fine and then all of a sudden find a soft spot and the horse would almost come to a full stop with his hooves buried in mud. Then this whole week it has been raining more.
WE DON'T NEED TO MAKE UP FOR YEARS OF DROUGHT WITH THIS MUCH RAIN IN ONE MONTH. It's just crazy.
I finally got a hired man hired. We went for a while with no nibbles for the job when all of a sudden there were 3 candidates for the job. I hired the best one I think but as usual I really don't think he will last long. He only took this job because a better paying job fell through elsewhere. I'll see though.
As soon as it dries out I need to get quite a few things done. Normally i would be putting bulls out today but the weather has been preventing me from getting some preliminaries done so they are going to be delayed a few days. Hopefully by the middle of next week i can get them out. I would like to get the rest of the dries out then too. Whether it will be dry enough I am not sure but I will find out.
Last year the alfalfa fields on the Sarpy side had some weevil in them but I let it go because the little bit of hay was not worth spraying. This year the weevil are eating the fields alive. It's too wet to spray right now but as soon as it is clear enough a guy is supposed to spray them. Fourteen dollars and acre to spray for weevil but there is enough hay on them to make it worth spraying so spray I will.
It's amazing the difference from one year to the next. It makes it a challenge all the time. I guess that is not a bad thing but it gets tiring once in a while. Can't things just be easy once in a while?
We don't change what we are, we change what we think what we are. Eric Butterworth
"You may have to fight a battle
more than once to win it."
Margaret Thatcher (1925 - )
Today it's going to be sunny, 91 humidity of 70% and just plain uncomfortable here in Cincinnati, I'll trade you one for one!
Mike D.
PS: Do you have any water wings?
A little trick I learned re: hiring is this:
Hire two people. Make it clear that the best one will be kept and the other one likely wont be.
Sometimes you get lucky and both are keepers. Mostly, one floats to the top.
Mark
We have had to spray all our hay for weevil, even the new seeding which usually is okay. Also have sparyed all the malt barley for cereal leaf beetle. You would have thought that the "hard" winter would have killed the bugs but it didn't work that way here.
Our hay is starting to bloom so we could use some warm dry weather now to make hay. This cool, wet stuff isn't much for corn, either. The sugar beets in the neighborhood sure like it, tho. So do the weeds!