Farming

Recently we have been trying to smooth out our hay fields by lightly disking them and dragging a harrow behind. The worst part was the mole hills; it seems to be leveling them out quite well. We have done about 450 acres and are through on this side of the river, but have 160 acres left on the other side of the river.

A couple of pictures.


Here is what happens when you leave the windows down on the pickup.


DJ

New Camera, Haying, Flying, and Moving Steers

On Monday my new camera arrived. Our old one (Canon Powershot S3-IS) has been a really good camera, but is hardly pocketable. I ordered a Canon Powershot Elph 300 HS and have been really pleased with it so far. It doesn't have quite the zoom, but is really handy because of its size.

Our old camera (S3-IS) on the left and my new one (300 HS) on the right. All the pictures other than this one were taken with the new one.


We finished haying across the river. We ended up with just short of 700 bales off of 160 acres.



An aerial picture of some of our cows. My new camera seems to do better taking pictures out of the airplane.


The "sand rocks" towards Blue Mountain.


We started having problems with our steers getting into the neighbor's cattle (because steers tend to be curious) so we decided we should probably move them home a few weeks early. When we flew we saw they weren't too far from the gate, so we decided it would be a good time to move them.

If you enlarge this picture you will be able to see the steers.


So we took the stock trailer down part way. (The road is too bad to take it all the way down) Then we rode from there. Dad and Jessi split off to get six steers out of the neighbor's while the rest of us went to gather the rest of the steers.

A picture from the top of a ridge looking towards the river.


Gathering the steers.


Moving the steers.


They had to stop at the mud hole.


Another picture of them.


Waiting at the gate for the steers Dad and Jessi were bringing.


Mom looking for Dad and Jessi.


Danny on Dundee.


Mom on Poco.


Taking the steers across the ridge.


Trailing the steers home.


Mom, Dad, and Danny.


If you look closely you can see Jessi in the lead. We found that if you have her ride in front of the steers they tend to follow her.



Mom Danny and Dad again.



Headed down into the creek.


We got them home and dropped them in a nearby pasture. We will bring them in and haul them to another pasture pretty soon.

DJ

Haying, Airplanes, and More.

Lately Dad has been busy haying. A few days ago I went over and helped bale hay while he raked it. Here a a few pictures I took.







Here is a picture of the Super Cub.


And a picture taken from the Super Cub of our place.


A weird cloud from a few weeks ago.


DJ

Various happenings in October up until November 3d

We will try to update our blog at least once a month, maybe less, maybe more. I will try to fill in what we have been doing in October.


Around the middle of October we helped Dad ship his steers. It was a foggy morning. We had a couple neighbors helping along with our crew of kids. The following pictures are up near Blue mountain at the corrals.






We needed to plow our alfalfa down across the river this fall. That usually turns in to a big job especially for this cowboy that isn't all that crazy about farming. Not only do we have to plow, but disk, mulch, and level. Fortunately I can rent a mulcher, disk, and leveler from my brother-in-law Del. Bobbie ran the mulcher quite a bit for me, and DJ got to start plowing this year. He did quite a bit of plowing. Sure was nice to have the extra help. We may not get done leveling this fall since we did get quite a bit of moisture.


Some people have asked what a roll over plow looks like so here it is.


Some have also asked what a mulcher looks like too, so another picture for them.


This is a picture of the equipment over across the river. The most important one is the airplane. I might be a little biased but I would hate the thought of having to drive back and forth all the time 45 minutes compared to 10. Besides it doesn't matter how bad of day I have farming as soon as the airplane tires leave the ground it's a good day.


Brother-in-law, Del digging beets.

Neighbor, Keith Nelson digging beets. This was when it was dry. They had about half the beets done when it turned wet. That looked like a miserable job then, but they did get them out in pretty good shape.

In our spare time we are trying to work on the new shop/hangar. This is my crew helping put steel on the ceiling. We picked up a gantry crane at a farm auction down in South Dakota this fall. After we got it home I thought it would make a good cart for a scaffold. It works really well. It rolls easy, so easy you forget that you need to stop close to 4000 lbs that is rolling. Keeping it from going to fast with three kids is the main thing to concentrate on.

Three of my helpers.

Helpers in action. They think I don't hurry fast enough when they are holding tin up. I don't see what the problem is. They look like they have everything under control, don't they?

Yesterday we gathered the yearling replacement heifers and brought them in close. Today after I got done helping the neighbor ship his calves we gathered the heifers, ear tagged them, year branded them, and Ivomected them(it kills the parasites). We didn't Ivomec them for several years but just got tired of seeing cows with no hair in Feb. when it was cold. It takes a lot of feed when they lose their hair. We have enough parasites in our government with out having them on our cows too.

After we got done working them we hauled them down to the river pasture on this side of the river. The following are pictures of that.