blood moon

I missed the blood moon (lunar eclipse) this morning at two o'clock. Thinking that it is, after all, April, my body chose to sleep through rather than continue the winter's routine of checking the barn for new piglets and malfunctioning heaters in the middle of every night.  It's a pity.  However, as compensation, the skies have been truly spectacular most of those winter nights.  It comes of our recent trend toward high pressure systems, I guess.

I look forward to the completion of our geothermal application in the new building, plus installation of photovoltaic solar panel support for the electricity it uses.  Since we cannot rely on a strictly seasonal approach to production due to our meat sales, we must take what measures we can to reduce our impact upon the environment due to fuel use.

And perhaps next time on the blood moon.

Jim 

polar vortex

Well, this week's "polar vortex" is coming in right on schedule.  A foot of snow predicted. Wonder if it will continue right through April?  I want to be thinking about crop seeds and turning animals to pastures, not whether to move or wade through one more layer of snow.  One thing is that the the sun gets stronger daily and will eventually win out over the cold air currents.  May, perhaps?

Jim 

long winter

Now the legislature is rushing money out to help people with huge heating bills, especially those who use LP gas.  This is one of the things they can be sure is right to do.  Nobody should freeze in this wealthy country.  On the farm, this winter has been savage and tiring, too.  Our new hog farrowing facility is not completely finished and we have been able to use a fuel oil heater in there on a temporary basis, rather than rushing into the gas-fired heater which will be the permanent installation.  We are out there each cold night at three or four making sure everything is working alright.  This winter teaches, among other things, that we need to link the geothermal in there with some additional solar heat so that the fuel truck visits us less often. 

Much time and fuel is used in clearing the yard of snow every few days as the wind constantly blows it full again.  Each episode ties up one of us for most of a day, getting us back into working order again.  The snow piles here are huge.  Each midweek, it seems, when we must deliver animals to the processor, features its own snowstorm or blizzard.  Diesel fuel tends to gel in the sub zero temperatures. 

Most of the non farrowing livestock depends upon bedding and windbreak to tough it through the winter.  Cold stress is a heavy burden on health, for them and for us.  Feed use nearly doubles.  We will applaud the end of winter. 

spring

Now we have warmer weather for a few days, with temps collapsing this weekend, but not to their typical (for this winter) lows below zero.  The soil is showing up in places as the snow pack compacts and melts back.  This will soak up the heat from the late winter sun and enable a good runup in temperature the next time a warm front comes through.  Ever the farmers, our thoughts turn to new baby animals and seeds.  The longer days and warmer temps invite long snowshoe tramps across the fields and pastures.  It is our annual awakening!

Jim

Out to the sun

The weather took a turn for the better, with calmer winds and temps in the low thirties for the past few days.  Not warm enough or long enough to melt the glare ice on the yard, but nice enough to tempt the sow herd out and get them started on the silage bales we set out for them.  We like to see the sows having forage in their diets for their good health, but it has been a problem when the pastures aren't available.  This year we set out plastic wrapped grass/alfalfa wet bales and they are really tearing into it.  They like the silage smell I think.  We know it's good for them.  Improves their temperament too, and makes them easier to work with.  That's good for us as well.

Jim 

winter weather

Winter descended savagely on Sunday.  Temps dropped to -15 the night before and struggled to get to a positive reading on Sunday.  Winds came up out of the northwest, perhaps 20mph.  Temps fell to -25 last night and today predictions are for winds to rise to 25 or 30 mph, temps to stay below zero today and drop to -25 tonight.  The governor has called school off statewide because it is too dangerous, which shows him to be somewhat more sane than many other people, who persist in believing their cars can be depended upon in this weather.  Any farmer knows better. 

The yard is glare ice on top of partially melted snow.  It is dangerous to walk on.  Today the ice cleats go back on the shoes.  In this kind of weather, I question my own sanity for keeping livestock.  The cattle who are on unlimited high quality hay are doing all right behind their windbreak.  The market hogs are reasonably comfortable in their hoops, though they don't gain well because they don't care to get out of bed to get to the feeder.  The younger animals, for which we have adapted the old farrowing quarters are doing ok, as are the sows and litters in the farrowing quarters, but both of these are benefiting from a huge drain on the gas and oil fuel supply.  The heaters run constantly, and very many more days like this will see the end of whatever profit there was in the livestock.  Petroleum is expensive.  We are burning through the bedding as well, trying to keep animals comfortable.

The gestating sows are a difficult problem.  We got the drinkers moved out of their hoops last summer, improving conditions for them considerably by reducing the wet bedding problem.  But they are still not cozy, their numbers are not high enough to provide the body heat necessary for comfort in unheated quarters.  We still need to modify things for them.

And the farmers?  Impossible to drink enough water to stay properly hydrated.  Impossible to stay awake in the evenings.  Difficult to wake up in the morning.  Difficult to stay upright working outdoors.  Machines break down.  Hoping we don't find a heater broke down when we check at 3 o'clock in the morning. Mounting frustration.  Waiting and hoping for a weather change.  And for the return of optimism.   

blow off

Visibility is reduced to about a half mile on this 22nd day of December.  The winds have picked up and made short order of blowing the snow from the neighbors' moldboard plowed cornstalks.  Other than our own place, we live in a black world again.  Our 32 acres of plowing has not blown off.  I think this may be for two reasons;  first that it is discing and then chisel plowing shallow with sweeps rather than the moldboard plow.  It is a hayfield we want to bring back for row crops; this is the only place in our rotation where we do fall tillage, about ten percent of our acres.  So that then is the other reason, the size of the field is small enough to prevent the wind from getting a very good go at it.  Maybe there is a third reason, the fact that the exposed soil is laced with grass and alfalfa and clover roots, all of which are perennial, unlike corn, and none of which were dead when the tillage was done. 

We need to rotate corn in and out of our rotation for the hog business.  There seems no other way than tillage to kill the established hay in an organic system.  I don't like tillage.  I don't think it does the soil any good.  Further, undisturbed perennial sod sequesters carbon, which we desperately need to do, thanks to everybody's irresponsible over use of petroleum.  You might notice that this service, provided free to the rest of us by any responsible grazing agriculture never gets talked about when agriculture's environmental sins are being listed.