At Last

Yes, as seen in the photo , finally calf number2 has learned how to feed itself. I kept it alive by feeding it milk replacer for 5 days. It just did not have a clue what to do even though the cow was co-operative. So that is one chore off my list.
One of the first real snow storms of winter hit on the night of March 6 giving us a few inches of new snow and giving me a few hours of tractor time clearing up the yard and driveway with the blade. This late in the season and I have not yet had to install the snow blower on the old Cockshutt 40. That is a first in my memory.
This year's dry fertilizer arrived by truck today so I won't have to worry about getting it here in April when the frost is out of the ground and too soft to drive a truck some places.
It got a little interesting when the grain auger quit half way through unloading the fertilizer . I was desperate enough to actually consider welding the u joint back onto the drive shaft but after finding it was just a key dropped out of the shaft we were able to install a new one and finish the job. There is really never a good time for a grain auger to break down.
There is still plenty of time for a good old March blizzard like the one that hit last March 22.

UGG Annex Day One.

The big move, taped ten years ago today. I see it was colder and we had a lot less snow than today. Hard to believe it was all that long ago.

Grain Marketing

Ok, I guess I am mentally challenged. That is the only conclusion I can come to after years of studying, reading, and trying to understand grain marketing. Terms like positive and negative basis, spreads, put options, hedging futures.......etc. It just makes my head spin. I have a very basic concept of what those terms mean but really no idea what difference it should make to me when I am making the decision to sell my grain in the bins.

My decision to sell is based on what the figure is going to be on the cheque I receive and shouldn't that be all I really need to know? Whether I decide to sell at today's price or lock in a delivery for next September, the bottom line should be , what is the net price per bushel that I am going to receive. All those other confusing terms and useless information is just needlessly complicating my life but to read the ag forums where all these "experts' talk about marketing grain makes me feel like I am hopelessly living in the past with my old fashioned ideas.

Having said that I have just locked in a couple of loads of canola today for a very good price. I neither know or care what the "basis" is on that grain. All I know is that I need to deliver the grain within the next two weeks and I am happy with the price I will receive.

In other news, our drought continues. The little snow we have is staying with us but is the least amount I have ever seen in my life. Still over two months til planting time so no panic yet but if this "dry spell" continues into the growing season there is potential for problems. But like the old timers used to say, "I've never lost a crop in February yet. "
Looking back at this photo from ten years ago, we didn't have much snow that winter either but the rest of the year and crop turned out just fine.

There Are Strange Things Done in The Midnight Sun

Yes, that is a disgusting rat in the picture. My new trail cam arrived last week and this is one of the first pictures it took. I had seen tracks in the chopped grain bin and had suspicions what they were. Set up the cam overnight and even the poorly focused, over exposed photo could not disguise that long rat tail with its glowing eyes looking at the camera. Funny how my cats live underneath the bin and in the balestack beside it yet they don't kill this rat. Maybe I am feeding them too well and they have lost the urge to hunt.

Now I have a block of rat poison and a conibear trap set up  hoping to catch this pest.
In other news, our mild winter continues with far below normal snowfall. Is this the beginning of a drought? If we went this long without significant precipitation and above normal temps in the growing season our crops would suffer and maybe not even survive. Of course that may not be a problem if the 2012 apocalypse  we hear so much talk about now come true.
Personally I am betting a fair bit of cash and labour that I will grow a crop this year and be around next year to sell the proceeds and spend it again in the endless cycle of farming.

Fuel For The Fire

Getting lazy here. Just another video of firewood sawing last weekend. Poplar is not the best firewood compared to maple , birch or oak but it is plentiful here and produces heat. The old saying that firewood warms you more than once is true. Cutting the trees down in the bush, then sawing it into stove lengths will certainly produce a little body heat long before the firewood hits the wood stove.
That 65 year old (or more) Wisconsin V4 engine that runs the saw used to be the power plant on my Dad's Case model A pull type combine for the first 20 years of it's life. To me there's no sound quite like a V4 engine working so turn up the speakers and enjoy..........

Lazy Farmer 15

Things are pretty slow here on the farm in winter. Even more so when the wind chill factor hits the -40 mark as it has recently. We have been spoiled by the mild weather up to this point that its a real shock dropping nearly 50 degrees off our daytime high temps. At least I don't feel so guilty about sitting in the house by the stove like the old Lazy Farmer cartoons from the sixties.

Threshing at Motherwell Farm

A new year of ramblings begins.
I shot this video on vhs back in August of 92 at the Motherwell Farm's annual threshing demonstration. They re-enact the process of threshing grain just as it was done when the farm was a working farm circa 1911. Of course they can't push the old Hart Parr tractor too hard and with a limited amount of grain sheaves to work with , they have to make it last for a couple of days worth of demos anyway. This time they got perfect harvest weather. The kind my Dad used to talk about with the blazing hot sun, grain dust, and a seemingly endless supply of stooks to be hauled in from the field to the thresher.
No slackers allowed here as the hungry thresher had to be kept running to capacity blowing a steady stream of separated straw out the blower and a stream of clean grain into the bin. When it was all done, Dad's wages went towards paying the threshing bill. After a few years of this I guess the army looked pretty good with 3 meals and a dollar a day when he joined up in 1941.