Is this April?
Wow, this weather is not what I had expected for April. Seems like every night it’s been in the 30’s. That’s not good for the plants. I would hate to have an orchard right now. Estimates are they’ve lost about 60% of their crop. I know all the blooms on the apple trees here are gone.
Today was our family day and we went out to eat and stopped by the local Tractor Supply Company. The kids and I had spent $240 by the time we left. We picked up 3 new horses this week. Well, actually 2 horses and a pony. My neighbor Mr. Wisham had them and hasn’t ridden them in 3 or 4 years. Yeah this is going to be a rodeo. The price was right though. The 2 horses are registered American Quarter Horses. Also sold 2 of the calves this week for $750. Between the pigs I sold and what I sold the calves for, I’ve gotten more than what I paid for everything back in the winter. I still have 4 pigs and a calf to take to slaughter too. All I’m out is feed and the time I spent. I wish I could always do that good.
Garett talked me into getting two pre-fab rabbit cages. His rabbits are old enough now to raise baby bunnies and he wants to try. That means we have to get them seperated out so they can make a good nest and the other rabbits won’t eat the babies.
Still haven’t gotten the time to service the 6000. I did get the fertilizer spread though. I got all mine done, now I can concentrate on spreading for others. The price of fertilizer being so high has really cut down on how much I have to spread for others. When prices get high people just don’t want to let go of the money. With it at $420 a ton, I’m sure a lot of folks are just gonna hope for the best without fertilizing.
Madison and Garett have been dressing the puppies up this week. They found some baby onesies and put them on the puppies. We got them wormed and I picked up their vaccinations this week too. It’s time to start trying to find some new homes for them since Daisy is weaning them.
Nothing really new on the poultry houses. Still going through the process of getting all the bids together. The next hurdle will be figuring out how the money will be released and making sure we can get enough to do the building right.
Well 5 AM will be here before you know it so I’ll close for now. Be sure to check out the pics I’ve added.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Joel, Family and Friends,
The weather here in western Missouri is becoming more seasonal, but the ground is still very wet. Some of the farmers got thier corn in before the cold weather and snow hit, some of it was up about three inches or so when it dropped before freezing. I doubt that they will be able to re-work thier fields again until next week or early in May. Many of them will have to wait on the insurance companies to send out adjusters and declare the crop a total loss, unfortunately many insurance company adjusters are not that reasonable. Many of them will make the farmers wait until it is almost too late to plant corn, oh well, they can switch to beans, if they have to.
The state Ag dept says we may have lost our grape crop, so those of you who enjoy Missouri wines might not have a good supply from this year. They also say the peaches and apples will be the same way.
I was thinking about spraying some hedge with 2 4 D and diesel fuel this next week, if they leaf back out enough for the brush killer to work. The USDA had tons of the stuff planted here back during the dust bowl years to control erosion. It does the job well enough, the only problem is it has gotten to the point that it is a noxious plant now, just like Multi-Flora rose and Canadian Thistles. We also have the same problem with Red Cedar and Locust coming up as volunteer plants. Brush hogging helps some, but it seems like once it gets started the only means of stopping it is through use of brush killers.
I need to work on my fence with my neighbor to the North. He told me last year we ought to, but since neither of us has any stock right now I didn’t think it was all that urgent. My dad put up the fence when we moved here in 1963. It’s 47 inch woven wire on hedge posts, topped with one or two strands of 4 point barbed wire. It has taken some abuse over the years, including some horses and ponies that liked to reach over the fence and graze on our side. I’m going to look it over and see if I can restretch it and put in new steel and wood posts. It might be a lost cause. I may have to just bite the bullet and buy some new wire too.
I hope everyone has a great week! The weather is gorgeous, and maybe we can dodge some storms this week.
April 19th, 2007 at 8:41 am
No, it is not April. As PBS stated yesterday, this is a 61 day March!