Happy Labor Day! Not that a holiday means a break from working here on the ranch, or time-and-a-half pay.
Anyways, last week was pretty busy. We spent a lot of time getting a quarter section about 5 miles away on the highway prepped for a new water system and a planting of perennial cool season grasses. We marked out about 11 hydrants and then a local water systems company installed it in a couple days. Now there are beautiful shiny water tanks dotting the field. My boss has spent a lot of time in a tractor undercutting and now discing trying to get the field ready for the seed. Hopefully the weather cooperates.
Oh, I wanted to show you something:
In this picture you see two fields that had wheat harvested from them: The foreground up to that brown hill, and then the brown hill itself.
Please answer the following questions:
Which field was raised organically?
Which field yielded 88 bu/a, twice the state average of 44 bu/a?
Which field will feed 250 head of cattle for almost a month?
If you said the field in the foreground for all of the above then you are correct. The conventionally raised wheat on the hill yielded 50 bu/a, but now sits dead with nothing growing in it, wasting solar energy.
I spent a day last week planting the portion of that wheat field that has already been grazed using an ATV with a spreader on the back broadcasting turnip seeds. The plan is to use the turnips as winter forage for the cattle.
I think that’s it. Following are a picture of the house I’m occupying and a picture of a heron that lives around the local ponds. It’s in the very middle of the picture. I was hoping to get closer but no such luck this time.
