Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Wednesday morning on the farm - 3/18/09

The sun has come up, birds are singing, the air is crisp and cool...apparently I didn't die and go to Hell for raising livestock (as a couple of nice e-mailers implied I would).

Yesterday was pretty routine on the farm, and pretty wild off of it. No, I'm not talking about St. Patty's Day celebrations, I'm talking about the feedback I received from making comments on this blog and on a couple of others about animal care. If you didn't see them, I and many of my peers made a point yesterday to talk about the high standard of care that's given to animals on 99.9% of the farms around this country. This was in response to HBO's "Death on Family Farm " documentary and the flood of accusations that the abuses uncovered are commonplace in America. Unfortunately, there's too much of a philosophical divide to have a productive conversation with some of these folks making those claims. I mean, they have actually likened my raising of animals to human slavery and the Holocaust!

But that was yesterday.

Today really is shaping up to be beautiful. The stars were out in all their glory early this morning and I don't know if we could ever come any closer to having "perfect" weather. We have several odds and ends to take care of this morning. We'll be replacing the a/c thermostat and rear window on our Case 5230 (and painting it as well); we'll be repairing the front end on our International; and the chainsaw, bushhog, and fencing tools may all get a workout today.

The ground has dried enough that we've been able to start grazing the milking herd again in the mornings. They seem to be slowly picking back up in production after the big dropoff over the wet weekend.

The rain did have an adverse effect on milk production, but it's been great for our spring forages. With plenty of soil moisture, the rye and triticale we planted is really taking off now that the sun's back out and it's getting warmer. I swear I can almost see it growing before my eyes!

Hopefully I'll come back home at lunchtime with a whole lot accomplished and not quite so much hate mail in my inbox.

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