Northern Farmer

It’s Saturday evening and the week around here is winding down. This week has been a tough one with the heat and dryness we’ve been going through. One pasture was almost shot where we have 20 cow-calf pairs. About the only thing growing were the thistles. But that pasture must have some good grass because the cows are fat yet eating the brown dryed grass that’s left. We were putting in forms for our silage pit in the heat and dust, and it was so hot in the pit, with no wind, it’s hard to describe. But we’re ready for a Monday morning pouring of cement. The corn all week has been trying to stay alive and most still is with the exception of a few spots in lighter soil. Burned down like a flame thrower hit it.

This morning I woke up pretty much as everyday around four thirty AM and fired up the old computer and checked the radar first thing. Prospective farmers, take note! If you ever think drought or dry spells won’t affect your mind your only fooling yourself. It’ll wear at you even when you deny it. Everyday, even with a smile on your face to show others how unconcerned you are, you look west to see if there is “anything” forming in the skies. You see plants dying or going dormant. Water holes are drying up. Dust in your eyes making them redder than heck. It’s hard to sleep at night wondering if it’ll rain. You read someone say that a person shouldn’t be concerned about such earthly things. That’s a red flag up for me because that tells me that person is about as agrarian as Michael Jackson.

Back to the radar image this morning, there was a good looking batch of rain in the Dakota’s heading this way for once. I think it would be comical to see the scene of me figuring out the weather in motion, holding my pen up to the screen to really get the direction of the rain. Playing it over and over. Remember, on weekends here there’s no weather forcasts on TV to tell you how delightful the day will be for recreational activities. This was the first one in over a month that looked like it could be promising. Still in the Dakota’s but bee lining here at a good clip. We did pasture checks this morning and it was cloudy and nice out. The grass would go crunch walking on it. Later around 8:45 I told Rachel we better get some cows off of the alfalfa field they were grazing because believe it or not the sky looked like rain. We headed out there about a mile and a half away. The sky was getting darker to the west. Suddenly lightening bolts were striking a few miles west. That’s not the best time to be by an electric fence but it had to be done. After a while we got the cows to their home pasture using our old truck, Rachel said there’s no amusement park in the world that’s more fun than Dad driving the truck moving cattle when he’s in a rush. I closed the last gate and the lightening was under the count of ten reaching us with a boom. The time was 9:15 by then and we were safe in the truck and it started to rain. Boy did that lightening flash!! Got home and it rained and rained. We picked up over an inch. It’s hard to describe the emotion that comes over oneself with a saving rain.This evening it’s humid and greening up so fast it’s unbelievable.

Thank You Lord so much for today. Thank You.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 23rd, 2005 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.