movement

 The spring is moving in, today most visible in the appearance of meltwater under the thick snow pack we have.  It generally starts this way, with snow melting from the bottom up a bit ahead of the warmup from above which manifests in a compacting of the snow cover.  We find it easy to forget that the earth is warm at heart and that the conduction of heat from the earth's core has as much to do with spring as the warming air.  

There is a sense that the season told us we needed to bundle up and lay in supply in November and December so that we could sleep more and work less.  This is followed by the returning light and invitation in spring to stir and wake up, to get on with the joy and work of the farm.  It would be difficult, pretty much impossible, not to respond.  Impossible anyway for me!

late winter

The days have been lengthening steadily, slowly at first, coming away from December 21st, then accelerating into the summer.  By mid-February, a meteorologist proclaimed from the television yesterday, we have added a full hour of daylight. 

And it feels like it.  For us who have lived in a northern climate all our lives, we recognize that subtle awakening going on inside, the coming back of a bit of spring to the step, and the looking forward again to the changing earth and what it might bring to our notice.  We wake earlier and better refreshed at that.

Now I can go walking in the pastures and pause my wading through the snow to push a little of it aside to see the greening of the grass, the coming of the first little spears of new life.  This is ancient wisdom. this coming of life(spring) after death(winter).  It is in late winter I feel the most sympathy for the snowbirds, the ones that have gone south for the winter.  They have meddled with that all important seasonal clock and neglected the fact that much well being comes of changing with the seasons, making us acutely aware of the rebirth of the earth and all its wonders.

Soon as the snow melts back, there will be the return of the seasonal birds and the warming of the soil will cause it to send up that unique smell, only available to us when the earth is warming or we have disturbed the soil.  It is this time of year when the need to be at home on earth is most apparent to those of us who are place bound.

Really?

 I just listened to a news report, an in depth one, I guess, about California's heavy rains and flooding.  The in depth label comes from the story's attempt to get into what or anything would mitigate some of the damage.  It was all about drainage systems and flood control structures and water diversion projects.  None of it spoke to the truth that any attempt to deal with severe climate disruptions must always start with land use.  

When huge amounts of water are running off a surface it matters what the surface is.  Is it flat and somewhat impervious or more sponge like in consistency?  It matters very much how whatever water was in the system at the outset of the event existed in the land.  Was it very much tied up in soil particles?  Are there parts of the landscape that will always be wet and that have been deliberately not meddled with by capitalism?  Is the entire surface in the area tied up with economic production or are there a significant number of acres in a closer to natural state? 

We humans are not helpless unless we make ourselves so by failure to think and reluctance to act upon what we have thought.

adjust

 Success, or sometimes just survival on the farm requires an ability to adjust.  Especially is this true in times of large and frequent change, which is happening now largely because of the pandemic, the climate, and the war in Ukraine.  For example, prices of hog feeds have skyrocketed over the last several years, due to the drought we are experiencing and the upset in the grain markets caused by the war in Ukraine.

The same drought caused our pastures to slow down early and severely cut into our hay supply, necessary to get the herd through the winter.

We are using two strategies to cope.  With the hogs our markets are continuous and ongoing.  Therefore we cannot shrink the size of the hog operation to compensate for the expensive feed because below a certain level of production we risk losing the market.  So we focus upon moderating the cost of feed by leaner operations and by substitute feedstuffs.  For the last several years we have been using product from our local pretzel factory, which is free, organic and also pretty readily available.  This becomes available because at start up and shut down for the various production runs, the resulting product is not something the company wants to sell.

These are great hog feeds.  On a traditional farm, hogs are always fed feeds that are similar to those for us humans, but that for one reason or another, we do not want to eat.  But the labor and extra machine use required to deal with them is something we need to keep in mind.  Labor is always in short supply in a livestock operation and diesel fuel has also been much impacted by the war and the pandemic.  We cannot rest easy expecting to work extra hours and using extra fuel.

We will soon have to solve a problem that came with our solution to the current problem.

Now with the cattle, the situation is a bit different.  Our cattle are a grazing and forage based operation that uses no grain and moderate amounts of fuel(for baling and wintertime feeding).  Additionally we had spent the last several years building up the cattle numbers to run a small stocker development business alongside the grass feds.  This plus our decision a year or so ago to sell the cowherd and buy in replacement feeder animals instead enabled us to destock which is the first need in responding to a drought situation.

We have marketed the cows-I am currently trying to adjust myself to the fact they are gone-sold a group of fat cattle at the sale barn and brought another group of feeder animals to the feeder cattle and bred cow sale.  Cattle prices are good now, which is helpful to us in our need for destocking.

The second rule of a cattle business coping with a drought is to buy any needed hay early, which is what we are currently doing, as our cattle sales did not reduce the appetite here quite enough to get through without purchase.  And hay is expensive. 

Our marketing with the beef is a bit more flexible, as it is all frozen product.  Thus the cattle processing can be a bit more seasonal and tends to be easier to adjust.  We do not have the same weekly need for market animals we have with the pigs. The role of the cattle in the farm operation is to benefit from the need to grow hay in our organic cropping rotation and also to serve as a third crop opportunity as they can be used to harvest crops that are harder to sell but necessary in a good crop rotation, such as the small grains and various annual forages.

Implied in everything I have written here is the predominance of marketing in the operations.  The late Allan Nation said it well when he wrote that the marketing locomotive must pull the production train.  This can make coping with difficult weather and high input prices harder than it would otherwise be, but without marketing, farms do not succeed. 

power lines

 The power coop did keep the lines up through the snow and high winds last week.  We have had some less than wonderful experiences with the power coops on our solar effort, because they over invested in coal and thus took away from their management much of the ability to make good decisions for the customers.

But the coops take a back seat to no one in utility service on maintenance and daily management.  Considering the huge distances they cover and amounts of assets they have exposed to all weather, they are without peer in service.  We could be stuck with Texas level carelessness and incompetence.  That we are not makes me grateful. 

Quieter day

 Wind is down today and the snow predicted is falling gently.  Probably not a good idea to get back to snow clearing just yet.  Temps are positive for the first time in days too.  Cattle are lying further apart now and not even grouping so close when they are standing.  They lie where they are rather than seeking out the windbreak.

I may have seen the pheasant Andrew saw with the pigs the other day, running across the pasture, so this one didn't die in the wind.  Drifting snow is dangerous for them because they tend to hunker down against the wind and sometimes can get drifted over deep enough not to be able to break through.  This can be seen in spring.  Pheasant carcasses sometimes line the inside slope of the windward side of the drainage ditches, where they are huddled against the wind. 

gray snow

 At 4:30 I started awake, looked at the diminishing light and went to the back to get all the clothes on.  Stopping by the shop on the way to the young calves at the west windbreak, I got the tractor started, set the throttle at just less than half and left it to idle, hoping to keep it warm enough so that it would start to power the alternator if the power lines came down overnight.  The phone gave an alarm about Willmar Municipal Utilities asking customers to reduce load until 10 pm.  It doesn't look so good.

Andy fell in beside me on his way to farrowing.

The calves were ok it looked like, backs all full of snow.  The main herd, south of the yard, was taking a run down the lane to get to their drinker.  I had no idea if it were open or not and knew very well that I couldn't do anything about it anyway, not if I planned to live to tell the story.  I may well have a cattle drinker to thaw in the morning, or the next day.  Meanwhile, the herd would have to eat snow.

Unlike this morning, that snow was becoming light gray and a bit gritty.  Soil was evidently blowing off somewhere.  I began to get angry, at myself as much as anyone else.  What must we farmers think, that it doesn't matter that some kid in the future will go without food because of the soil we let escape?

I shut the tractor down and came back to the house, brought the dog into her kennel in the garage.  LeeAnn had it all cozy wrapped in sleeping bags and quilts. I  fed and left her there.  We will hope for the best!