The week that was, the week(s) to come

We managed to do a little field work this week. Specifically, we had two disks running in our fields down in the Yellow Creek bottom. They guys ran Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, turning about 33 of the 48 acres. If we can manage to get through tonight with little or no rain, the remaining ground will probably be dry enough to disk by mid-week and we could possibly be planting corn down there by week after next. If the rainfall doesn't work in our favor, we'll most likely plant sorghum-sudangrass down there sometime in June.

Last year we lost our entire forage sorghum crop down in those fields. The steady rain that fell through September kept us from being able to get into the field, and by the time it might have dried enough to do so the sorghum had already died and lodged. These fields generally provide our best yields due to the ground's ability to retain moisture throughout the summer, and we're hoping that will hold true this year.

We also have about 30 acres of wheat and ryegrass to harvest this coming week. I'll be cutting 8 acres worth of once-grazed ryegrass tomorrow and we anticipate dry baling it on Monday. The remainder will be harvested as baleage.

Our bermudagrass hay fields will be getting a good dose of lime and fertilizer next week as well, so we should be baling some good-quality dry hay by the first week of June.

And lest I forget about our animals...we have 201 cows currently milking, and we will be implementing fly control and giving annual vaccination boosters throughout the whole herd over the next few weeks.