Farming is in full swing here in southwestern Nebraska with lots of strip tilling and spraying going on. Wind has definitely been a challenge for the sprayer operators.
Our neighbor, Derek Meyers, got our oats planted this past week. Cold soil and a little moisture held us back for a couple weeks, but warmer temperatures are around the corner. We are still in severe drought, but attitudes are better and conditions are better than we have been for quite a while.
We are getting some permanent fence built, and calving has switched from labor intensive to more of an Easter egg hunt now. We just drive around the calving grounds and find them.
I understand why people calve in January and February, but it seems like our calves that are born between March 20 and May 20 are generally the most successful. Our grass peaks in late June normally, so that is the easiest time to get a cow bred back.
We do what our customers want, so we breed heifers for February and we custom calve them for folks. We are going to push our start date a couple weeks later this next year and see if our customers accept that. Ideally, we would be calving all the heifers in March and the cows in April.
I’m writing this at the end of a very fun Easter Sunday. Jake handled chores and John G and his fiancé, Katherine, joined us at church. We also got to do one of our favorite things after worship: feed people! We made pancakes for the congregation while other families did the coffee, sausage, table set up, etc. It was a lot of fun. Michelle and I were on the griddles, Kat was mixing batter and bringing it to us and G was hauling pancakes to the chow line.
After Jake got done feeding, we went to the Waugh family home in McCook for Easter dinner. Jake and their daughter, Kaedin, have been dating for several months and we get to spend a lot of time with her.
Nate and Kerry are very welcoming, genuine people and we really enjoy how the families have meshed. Michelle and I are blessed that the boys have found such wonderful ladies to have in their lives. The girls pitch in however they can when their schedules allow. It makes everything more fun.
After dinner the boys and I paired out a trailer load of heifers with bull babies for the sale in McCook. We are keeping all the pairs with heifer calves with plans of making more bred females in the future. It is always fun to work with the guys.
Source: agupdate.com
Photo Credit: gettyimages-zoran-zeremski
Categories: Nebraska, Crops