Might be hot and dry here but the Walleye are hitting in Lake Francis.
Looks like I'll be here for another week or so, suppose to be getting a electrical project up and running here but my crew won't be here until late tonight.
The fishing here will give my sumtin to bide my time while they work.
We are pretty close to you,north of the Medicine Line and east a bit
Did you guys get a couple of those really nasty looking storms a week or so ago?
Yep, hail here Sunday night, broke some windows, siding. Mostly pea sized but a mixture with a few bigger than golf balls. Worse east of us 10-12 miles
Narrow strip flattened some crop that was done. Not a lot of damage to hay , it’s done
Grass fire south 10 miles on Monday, lucky to get it out quick
We are pretty close to you,north of the Medicine Line and east a bit
Did you guys get a couple of those really nasty looking storms a week or so ago?
Yep, hail here Sunday night, broke some windows, siding. Mostly pea sized but a mixture with a few bigger than golf balls. Worse east of us 10-12 miles
Narrow strip flattened some crop that was done. Not a lot of damage to hay , it’s done
Grass fire south 10 miles on Monday, lucky to get it out quick
Not sure where you are but we watched a nasty one about that time. The entire cloud was flashing orange.
I would guess it was somewhere around Frontier.....give or take a hundred miles!
In the 80s we fed quite a bit of straw. Winter wheat straw mostly. Good feed of pellets with it for protein We saved the hay we had for close to calving and through calving. It worked pretty well.
Was in E WA a couple weeks ago. Looked dry. Saw 3 good size fires. One just outside of Spokane was causing evacuations.
I don’t know what typical wheat harvests are but fella on the radio said they’d be lucky to average 50 bushel an acre.
Pretty sure we had a above average snowpack this year.
Shiit she’s dry over on the west side buddy… the drought ain’t a joke. The north fork of the newaukum is the lowest I’ve seen in 20 years I’ve lived on it. It’s early September levels already
Ping pong balls for the win. Once you've wrestled everything else in life is easy. Dan Gable I keep my circle small, I’d rather have 4 quarters than 100 pennies.
In the 80s we fed quite a bit of straw. Winter wheat straw mostly. Good feed of pellets with it for protein We saved the hay we had for close to calving and through calving. It worked pretty well.
Dad dry lotted his cows once in the 80's on 10 pounds of really, really good valley hay and all the straw they would eat.
It WAS NOT this nasty burnt up hay we put up!
We are going to order 25 ton of cake tomorrow. Hoping that if we sell down a bit, we will be able to get by with straw, grazing, cake and what little hay we have.
We could sell lots of stock and not buy any cake....but we still need to be in business next year and doubt re-stocking will be terribly affordable.
We have never fed cake before, ever. But we have a cake feeder that I feed safflower and barley with.
Looking into trying to get the claves up to 450 as early as possible. Anything under that and they are going for 400 to 500 bucks.
Wondering if creep feeding them would pay this year?
It’s drier west, Val Marie & Bracken , probably Frontier.
My hay was 1/3 last year which was no screaming hell. And mine was better than most because it’s newer ...
My dryland hay stands are all ten years old or so.
Thinking that they should be pastures now.....and switch to farming for the livestock. Buy more sheep and run more yearlings or something.
Grow more grazing corn and sorghum sudangrass for stockpiled winter forage.
Plant winter triticale or forage winter wheat for hay. Fertilize for a stand.
I think that down here in the 10 inch precip range, fertilizing a planted forage crop might be more cost effective than spreading fertilizer on dryland hay.
My hay is only 4 or 5 years old . I don’t make my living at it , it’s family land.
Lots more of that going on here, especially corn. We don’t see much sorghum or winter triticale though. I’ve used triticale as a cover crop and a green feed, nice mix with oaths
I think you are correct,fertilizers on crop seems to work better here than on dry land hay
That cake/range pellet sure stretches the forage.
Your approach seems to work pretty well. When that stuff doesn’t fall out of the sky it’s a tough go😟
Might be I should tell the wife to stock up on flour for our baking needs over the winter?
The desert is a true treasure for him who seeks refuge from men and the evil of men. In it is contentment In it is death and all you seek (Quoted from "The Bleeding of the Stone" Ibrahim Al-Koni)
In the 80s we fed quite a bit of straw. Winter wheat straw mostly. Good feed of pellets with it for protein We saved the hay we had for close to calving and through calving. It worked pretty well.
Dad dry lotted his cows once in the 80's on 10 pounds of really, really good valley hay and all the straw they would eat.
It WAS NOT this nasty burnt up hay we put up!
We are going to order 25 ton of cake tomorrow. Hoping that if we sell down a bit, we will be able to get by with straw, grazing, cake and what little hay we have.
We could sell lots of stock and not buy any cake....but we still need to be in business next year and doubt re-stocking will be terribly affordable.
We have never fed cake before, ever. But we have a cake feeder that I feed safflower and barley with.
Looking into trying to get the claves up to 450 as early as possible. Anything under that and they are going for 400 to 500 bucks.
Wondering if creep feeding them would pay this year?
That always depends on the price of creep and tbe price of calves. Works great when first one is low and 2nd one 9s high! We've never creeped the calves, did supplement the cows with protein blocks in 1980. Thinking we may have to do something this year to get through. Right now we are grazing some crp that came out last year. That was good timing.
Hoppers are bad in Phillips. Went south of Malta with the extension agent, some spring wheat that had failed and was going to be hayed. Nope, hoppers slicked it off, there were four inch stems only, no moisture within. I pulled a couple, tried to chew them for some kind of idea on how dry, couldn't feel or smell anything resembling water. Wish this bubble would break. Really is an emergency.
Up hills slow, Down hills fast Tonnage first and Safety last.
That's pretty sad looking hay Sam. At first I was like, there is a little hay there at least, then you got out of the low spot and there wasn't chit! If anyone is looking for hay to import from the NW side, let me know. I know a few hay farmers, but I'm not sure what they have still available.
"Life is tough, even tougher if your stupid" John Wayne