Summer officially starts today and Mother Nature is making it known. In Minnesota we always say that we can stand the heat, but not the humidity. With our gluttony of rain lately, the humidity is out in full force and so are the storms.
This last week we had lots of rain and storms.
On Sunday, we (well everyone minus me and the kids) loaded our first batch of chickens headed to the butcher shop. We load chickens at night because they are calm from the dark. This allows for easy loading and less stress on the animals. Tim, Lisa and Samantha drove the chickens down to Dennison and then drove back in another storm.
Monday, a lot of corn was under water. There is a lake on the back of the farm now. We are thinking of charging for swimming.
This year has been brutal on the corn. When it rains it pours and a lot of soil is ending up in the ditches. Good thing 90% of our farm is pasture or hay, but it still has Jon and Tim wondering if corn is worth it anymore.
Corn is not very good at holding soil in place (compared to other crops). With organic farming, our soil is our number one resource. Our soil must be built and we cannot fix missing nutrients with chemical application. If we don’t have healthy soil, our crops are not healthy. That means the food our cows eat is not as healthy. There are several all grass farms around us. There are also farms using non-traditional feed crops such as barley. The guys are always looking at ways to increase feed value while preserving the health of our land. So the search will be on and we are already planning for 2013’s crop.
Early Tuesday morning we had even more storms. A trained spotter reported wind gusts to 83MPH near us. HOLY COW!! Our trampoline didn’t fair well and one of our calf hutches was lifted off the ground and dropped on the other side of a mature tree line. Thankfully, there was no calf in it. Our farm didn’t get as much damage as others near us.
These have been apart of Tim’s work attire all week.
More rain and storms are expected today and the rest of the week. Please pray for us, our animals and our crops.
Emily
I’ll pray that some of that rain heads to Colorado where it’s needed, too.
*hugs* and God bless.
We will gladly send some your way! It is currently raining again. At least this time it is a soft rain and not down pours.
Glad to hear it. Have a blessed day. ♥
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