Herald of spring,
Barnswallows are back!
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Tropical winters,
Wisconsin summers.
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New mud nest,
Or top-mud the old one.
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Two or three clutches,
Of insatiable young.
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Dive-bombing children,
And curious cats.
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Feeding their young,
Who wait on the line.
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Finally feasting,
On Leafhoppers flying.
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Circling tractor,
As I mow hay.
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Curious farmer, Curious nature | 
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I’m disappointed in this alfalfa/grass stand. There is as much Foxtail as alfalfa.
Looking at the positive though, I appreciate the rain which helped the alfalfa, grass, and weeds grow. The farmers of Texas and the south probably haven’t had enough rain for weeds to grow.
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The alfalfa is growing, but so is the Foxtail, (weed).
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Field of baled hay.
Below is a picture of the Round Baler, unloading a finished bale. Hay is picked up underneath the baler. The belts keep tension on the hay as an ever-increasing amount is rolled up, resulting in a tightly-packed round- bale of hay.
Photo by Melissa.
Each bale weighs about 1500 lbs. and feeds at least 50 cows a day in winter. We feed the cows by unrolling the hay on the frozen ground so all the cows can eat at once. They eat their daily allotment in a few hours.
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Field of raked hay. After two to three days of drying, the mowed hay is raked into a double windrow, meaning two are merged into one, resulting in less time baling. The hay continues to dry as the hay which was underneath is now exposed to the air and sunshine.
The picture below is of our wheel rake. Each arm of wheels moves up and down hydraulically. When the wheels are down, they turn along the ground moving the hay into the center.
Photo by Melissa.
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The series without an ending. Even after I’m gone, the land will still be here.
I have a box of arrowhead fragments, which the previous owner found during years of plowing and erosion. Through conservation efforts, some of which he started, we no longer lose enough soil to find arrowheads. But the box helps me remember we’re just here for awhile.
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This was my worst field of down corn, Monday, after the severe storm. We received close to three inches of rain in less than an hour. Wind speeds of 70 mph were reported.
I was shocked when I looked out and saw the fields. I examined it right away and figured it was a total loss, but held out hope because I only found one stalk snapped off. Sometimes corn can pull itself back up if it’s early enough in the growing season.
And thankfully, that’s what our corn did. The picture below is of the same field on Friday. The mud on the leaves shows how down it was.
Before me, Citygirlfriend had never known someone who actually talked about the weather. I think she’s starting to see why we do.
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I cut the oats with the haybine yesterday. A severe storm blew in Monday morning and flattened the field, pictured below. It flattened the corn as well, but the corn is straightening itself back up. The oats won’t come back up this late in their life cycle, so they would be close to impossible to combine, (removing the grain from the straw). We’ll bale the whole plant instead, and feed it as a forage.
This is definitely not what I envisioned when I started this series. We planted late, the weeds were coming worse than usual, and now the oats blew down. I guess I’m illustrating the Eisenhower quote:
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”
— Dwight Eisenhower
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Shepherd and I found this newly moulted Dragonfly while picking BlackCap Raspberries.
It was nearly invisible and we probably wouldn’t have seen it, if it wasn’t sitting on a ripe raspberry.
You never know what you’ll find if you go outside, but if you don’t go, you won’t find it.
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Curiousfarmer 