Fall Grazing...

The cows have been getting a little antsy.

The nights have been too cold for them to go out...and the last couple of days were either rainy or muddy, so they stayed inside.

The grass in the waterway has also been growing.

Solution?

This morning Jim put in fence posts along the waterway and across the corner of one of the hay fields, and a rye grass field...

Here he's dragging the wire that is attached to the tractor up across the fields to the furthermost fence posts, under those far away trees...

My camera just snapped this picture for fun.  Three lonely round bales, along with about a half dozen corn stalks that were left by the chopper.  It was kind of him to not hit the bags as he went by!  :)

The cows were watching from the meadow, and they knew something was up...

I got closer, and I knew exactly who I'd see on the other side of the wire. #314 didn't take her eyes off of us the entire time we were working on the fence.  She just knew there was something greener on the other side...

I love watching the cows get so excited when they're left out into a new area to graze!  They kick up their heels and run like little kids!

( Please excuse the shaky video.  I wasn't doing a very good job of standing still!  It was also pretty windy, and there's a lot of noise in the back ground )

Standing guard at the top of the water way, just in case anyone gets unruly...

Meanwhile, Murphy and Snickers stole an ear of corn out of the truck and entertained themselves.  What is it about ears of corn that dogs find so appealing?

Grazing cows...

We just brought the cows back into the barn, and their bellies are full of grass.  They'll be contented tonight!

Fall 2015...

My camera and I took a walk this afternoon...

My camera can't do the leaves justice...they're so much brighter than they look here.  I think the bright yellows (which I have no pictures of) and the bright red/oranges are my favorites.  And oh, don't forget the dark reds.

Last weekend my sister and I traveled to a cross country meet about one hour north of here, and the drive was spectacular!  I'm so glad to live where we see the change of seasons.  Every year, without fail, we see God's beauty!

Yesterday's rain, along with the wind that has continued today, has brought a lot of the leaves to the ground...

Jim no longer picks corn, so an Amish neighbor asked if he could use our corn crib for a few loads of his corn.  He'll sell it later out of the crib.  It's nice to see it in use again...

The barley that Jim seeded is growing nicely...

And last but not least, my shadow, Murphy, followed me everywhere this afternoon.  When I went to visit a neighbor, she patiently waited for me along the edge of the soybean field...

What a loyal friend!

Reminiscing...and Counting Fodder Bales...

What do reminiscing and counting fodder bales have in common?

Absolutely nothing!

That being said, this picture had me reminiscing this morning, when it showed up on my face book feed ...

Apparently I posted it four years ago today, and it popped up again.  This is Tigger, and it was taken on a Sunday morning in the barn.  Jim was reading something in the newspaper while the last few milkers finished up, and Tigger decided to play.

As for counting fodder bales...

The final count for 2015 is twenty five wagon loads, plus a few pickup loads of bales that Jim dropped onto the ground once the wagons were full.  You can barely see them laying in the field...

If my math is correct, that's well over 3200 bales of corn fodder!  Twenty one wagons unloaded, and four wagons full, backed into the barn.  The weather these past few weeks has been amazing!  Long stretches of dry weather have farmers all around the neighborhood flailing, raking, baling and unloading load after load of fodder. We'll use the fodder off the wagons first...just so they're empty by spring when it's time to think about baling hay again.  Oi.

What's next?  After the baler and rake are put away of course...

Probably cleaning out heifer pens again, now that the fields are bare.  Maybe a day or so of "not so busy-ness?" can be found in there somewhere too.

That would be nice!

Frosty October Morning...

We had our first frost over night ...

...and it was a wee bit chilly this morning!

Baling Corn Fodder 2015...

This is how Jim has spent a lot of time the past week or so...

We'll have LOTS of good bedding for the cows and heifers for the next year!

Calibrating the Grain Drill...

It's been a busy week!  The weather has been good, so a lot has been done!

Jim baled two fields of corn fodder so far...14 loads as of this morning! ...and there's a lot more out there to be baled as long as the weather holds.

Meanwhile, once the first field was clear of fodder, he wanted to seed it in barley.  The barley will be a good cover crop for the winter...it will be combined and sold next June...and then there will be a little over ten acres of straw to bale. Before that could happen though, the grain drill needed to be calibrated.  He was using an Amish neighbors drill, which hadn't yet been calibrated for barley.  Last Saturday afternoon, he worked on that...

First off, he had to fill the grain drill with barley seed...

He knew how thick he wanted to seed the barley, but had to get the drill set to the correct settings.  We put plastic underneath the drill...

Using the formula provided, he turned the wheel 110 times...

The barley seed came through the drill and piled up on the plastic...

Then we transferred it to a bucket...weighed it...and did it a few more times, making adjustments until the settings seemed to be correct.

As soon as he could get into the field on Monday, he began seeding.  I just love the way a newly seeded field looks, with the distinct lines from the drill...

The seed has already sprouted, and soon we should be seeing a hint of green!

Seeding the Old Perennial Bed...

Early this spring, I decided to get rid of my big perennial bed.  Over the course of several weeks, lots of friends and friends-of-friends came and dug out starts for their own gardens.  I thought I would miss it...and when I look at old pictures, I do!  But I don't miss all the work of mulching and weeding.  At all.

This morning, it was transformed.

First, the ground was leveled out and clumps of weeds were removed.  They got dumped into a low spot on the field lane.  Field lanes are good for that!

Next, we had several piles of dirt out in a corner of the meadow that came in handy for filling in and leveling out the uneven spots.  Notice the difference in the soil color? The garden soil is almost black, from years of composting mushroom soil. The piles of dirt have a much brighter color, but I'm sure it will still grow fine grass...

Smoothing out the piles and filling in the low spots...

Preparing the soil one final time before the grass is seeded...

...and all finished!

Hopefully Little Ed doesn't decide to stop and dig in the dirt as he takes his leisurely stroll along the garden. He is, after all, my garden kitty...

They were going to put down a straw mat, to help mulch the new grass seed, but decided against it.  We're into cooler weather now, (forecast for the mid 30's tonight!) and they thought the seed might not get enough heat underneath the mat, to germinate and grow.

There's a lot of moisture in the soil from all the rain we've had in the past two weeks, but we'll still need to keep this watered until the new grass gets off to a new start.

I'm looking forward to the new look!

Beginning Corn Harvest 2015...

Boy oh boy, has the weather sure changed in the past few days!

Last week we were shrouded in gray clouds, with soaking rain.  We weren't sure what would happen with Joaquin.  I didn't realize just how much my mood is affected by the weather, but over the weekend I was feeling a little bit depressed.  Too much gray and rain, I guess.

Thankfully, the hurricane went out to sea, and on Sunday afternoon the rain stopped, and the sun came out!  We've had beautiful blue skies, and milder temps yesterday and today. Flannel shirt weather, yes, but it's so much nicer than shivering under blankets.

Last night our corn harvest began.  After evening milking, the combine started shelling corn at the other farm.  When Jenna and I came home from her violin lesson later in the evening, they had moved to Esbenshades.  I settled in on the sofa with my kindle and Monday night football...and before long I heard the equipment moving in here.  I only got one picture from last night...from an upstairs bedroom window, because I was too lazy to go outside and walk down the road to where the action was.

Don't get too excited...you can't see much, but the lights on the left are on the combine...the ones in the middle are from the tractor and grain cart...and the grain truck is parked along the road on the right.  There's no missing him...

This field is where they stopped around 10:00 last night. We shell our corn and send it away to be dried, toasted and stored until we need it.  If the moisture in the corn is too high, we are charged a fee for drying. As it turned out, the moisture of the corn in the fields here at home was too high to make it worth continuing for now.  We'll let it dry a bit longer before finishing up. The yields were great, though.  One field at Esbenshade's showed a yield of 230 bushels per acre!

This morning I took a few pictures.  I like this view down the rows of the corn field that you don't usually see...

So happy to see this beautiful blue sky again!

At least this field along the road is finished.  It was hard to see pulling out from the stop sign with the corn still standing.  Next on the list is getting these corn stalks shredded, and baling corn fodder...

We could use a long stretch of dry weather now!

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

It's raining, it's pouring, and (hopefully NOT blowing)!

People everywhere are affected by extreme weather, and we have so much to be thankful for!  Typically we have just enough moisture, just enough sunshine, and the right temps for a good growing season.  We don't usually have extreme weather issues here that threaten our lives or our properties like some areas do.  

However, occasionally this time of year especially, we are affected by a hurricane or tropical storm as it moves up the east coast.  Right now we're nearing the end of a wet week.  We've accumulated just about 2.5" of rain so far, which isn't so bad, but it's enough!  There's a rain storm that's been dumping on the east coast and it just won't go away.

This is a typical view out the windows lately.  Gray skies and rain...

There's still a lot of standing corn, (and soybeans) waiting to dry enough to be combined. There goes Jim on the manure spreader, in the rain.  He will be really soaked by the time he's finished this morning...

Right now, all eyes are on Joaquin, the current hurricane that is pounding the Bahamas.  Not knowing for sure what track the storm will take, lots of people are wondering what will happen later this weekend and into next week.

We had a wet spring, and the corn grew quickly.  In conditions like that, the roots don't go as deep, and the corn is more susceptible to blowing down late in the season in windy conditions.  Farmers are keeping a close eye on the weather, hoping that the corns stays standing.

Our thoughts are with those who will be directly affected by the storm, and we pray for their safety.