Lots to do today

We've got plenty of tasks lined up for us today on the farm.

I'll be hooking up our spray wagon before much longer and head for the sorghum fields. We didn't get a very good control on broadleaf weeds at planting time, so I'm going to attack the morning glory, sicklepod, and cuckleburr that's beginning to plague our forage.

My dad started replanting some of our crop yesterday evening and will hopefully get finished with that today. Roughly 20 acres of sorghum in one field was destroyed by worms over the weekend and will be completely replanted with sudex (sorghum-sudangrass). He will also be doing some "spot" replanting in a few fields where our sorghum stand is not very good.

Meanwhile, the other guys will start off feeding all the heifers and will then build a fence to create a couple of new grazing paddocks. Later they will start getting the haying equipment tooled up so we can bale the few acres of sudex we cut yesterday afternoon.

And of course, there are 174 cows that will need to be milked around 1:00pm.

Here's to another hot, humid, busy, and hopefully productive day on the farm!

Dairy awareness #moo -ving on up in Twitter

#moo

To those of you unfamiliar with the micro-blogging service Twitter, #moo has become quite the topic this Sunday afternoon. Words preceded by the # symbol are known as hashtags in Twitter lingo and are used as a label to help people find topics they are interested when searching through "tweets".

So what's the big deal about #moo?

Early last week, dairy families across our country received another painfully low milk check. Many of us thought that by the middle of summer we would have seen a price improvement, but that has yet to materialize. As bills pile up and losses mount due to the dairy pricing crisis, many of us have started feeling the emotional strain. As a way to do something silly and cheer ourselves up, a few dairymen with Twitter accounts suggested people use the #moo hashtag in their posts as a shout-out in support of America's dairy farm families. It caught on within the tweeting ag community and pretty soon #moo started showing up regularly within our discussions.

Then a farmer from Ohio, @FarmerHaley to be exact, raised it to a whole new level. Around mid-week, he stated his simple birthday wish: that people would use #moo in their posts on Sunday afternoon to support and bring awareness to America's dairy farmers. His wish was retweeted (repeated) many, many times and once Sunday afternoon rolled around #moo did indeed become a trending, or popular, topic on Twitter.

Not only have farmers and agricultural enthusiasts helped make #moo so popular, but its popularity has caught on with the tweeting public-at-large. And several folks, including fellow tweeting dairyman @RayLinDairy and @JPlovesCotton have worked diligently all afternoon to make people aware of what #moo is all about.

As a dairy farmer, I am very appreciative of the efforts that have been made to bring awareness to the situation our nation's dairy farm families are facing. I'm also thankful for all the people who aren't involved in agriculture who have taken time to simply explore what this afternoon's hot topic is all about. It's been a tough few months and the next several will continue to be challenging, but knowing there are people out there supporting you and appreciative of what you do really motivates a person to keep pressing forward.

So again, thanks to all of you who #moo! Keep it up, and keep on purchasing delicious, healthy dairy products!

Talking weather

It's the first day of August and all of our cropland, hay fields, and pastures are green. And a healthy green at that! It's not always been like this over the last few years, but so far this year we've gotten the rains we've needed to grow forage for our cows and heifers.

One of the toughest things about farming is knowing that you can't control what's often the biggest variable in your bottom line: the weather. Sure, a farmer can manage his or her operation based on historical patterns and select crops accordingly. One could hedge against the weather with irrigation, windbreaks, etc. Despite our best laid plans, though, a combination of prayer and damage control are often our only remedies when Mother Nature goes extreme on us.

Weather conditions at planting or harvest can cause delays that effect the yield and quality of a crop, not to mention weather's obvious effect on the crop during it's growing stage. And really good crops can often be destroyed in a matter of minutes by severe weather. Many heartland farmers have recently had crops destroyed by hail. One of our best corn silage crops ever was hurt by the howling winds of Hurricane Ivan several years ago when it hit us halfway through harvest. And then every once in a while, you get favorable weather all the way through which leads to thanksgiving and celebration (and a big sigh of relief).

Through it all...drought, wind, hail, floods, frost...the American farmer keeps on producing, holding on the the belief that no matter how good or bad this year has been, the next will be even better. And while we will never be able to conquer the weather, our nation's agricultural production proves that the weather hasn't yet conquered us.