How High’s the Water?
October 18th, 2007 by Northern FarmerAin’t that just the way it all goes, get droughted out in summer. Don’t have hardly anything as far as hay or silage because of the drought and now when it’s not all that important the rain just keeps coming down week after week! Just came in soaking wet from some of the morning chores. Raining to beat the band out there. Two weeks ago I hooked up the plow and figured I’d have it made plowing up some hay grounds in our rotation. Well, that tractor and plow are still parked there, never turned over an inch of soil. What’s a poor dirt farmer to do!!!
Gotta start preparing in the basement for wet times, roll up the rugs, clean up and all that. I just figured this would happen after the big drought. Can’t get to the cows, to muddy out there so they’ll just have to tough it out a few days more. Legs feel like they want to fall off because of wearing them knee high rubber boots and sometimes they ain’t even high enough! I ain’t complaining though, because when you don’t have water it’s a heck of allot worse. Take it from me, it is.
So for today I’ll just see if I can do what I can do. Gotta trim the fingernails on my left hand, so at least that’s a job I can do today, gotta start practicing up the guitar for church on Wednesday evenings and a person never realizes how fast them fingernails can grow till you start putzing around with a guitar or banjo. Gonna play some of the old songs, you know, “Nothing But the Blood” and stuff like that. It’s gotta be simple for me to do it. I kinda like doing that and was getting pretty good at it till spring rolled around and then the seasonal workload came and that was that for that! But the days are getting shorter and there is a bit more time in the evenings to practice up a bit.
In reality, there’s quite a bit happening around here as of late. Went and took three steers to the co-op yesterday to get weighed. When a person raises critters sometimes it’s difficult to tell what they weigh, seeing them every day makes me think that they’re still just big calves. But the largest one was 1300 pounds and I was happier than a pig in mud. They did pretty good for not having some super scientific modern medicated feed. Just got fed the old fashioned way and they look good! In fact they only took a month longer to raise up that way then when I’d send steers to southern Minnesota to get custom fattened. And they were force fed, and had the implants and everything down in those feedlots. Yup, raising them the old fashioned way ain’t all that bad. And another thing, I don’t have to use the whole cattle check to pay for feed to the custom feeder. Yup, life is much better now, even with the disasters that come up. Heck before it was a disaster no matter what a person did!
There’s allot in the local news lately about all that e-coli going around because of the industrial system that’s in use nowadays with the food. We got people around this area down with it even. It just makes me want to spread the word more and more about the benefits of buying from a good farmer direct. Nothing can beat that! When one understands all these outbreaks and understands it all comes from cattle being raised un-naturally it can change a persons eating and buying habits quick! Time to start providing food for folks the way God intended for food to be!
But for today my focus is on this rain, and I’d better get back out there and see what trouble I can get into. I’ll be humming a song, well I’m always humming songs, can’t hardly sing so might as well hum! Yup, hum some old gospel songs and might have to hum some rain songs, in fact there might not be much choice in the matter. Lets see, here’s a good song to hum, heck I might even sing it a bit because it’s to muddy for the cattle to run through a fence trying to escape the noise. I guess this is all what farming really is, droughts, flood, snow storms, you name it, it happens and we just keep on plugging!
How high’s the water, mama?
Two feet high and risin’
How high’s the water, papa?
Two feet high and risin’
We can make it to the road in a homemade boat
That’s the only thing we got left that’ll float
It’s already over all the wheat and the oats,
Two feet high and risin’
How high’s the water, mama?
Three feet high and risin’
How high’s the water, papa?
Three feet high and risin’
Well, the hives are gone,
I’ve lost my bees
The chickens are sleepin’
In the willow trees
Cow’s in water up past her knees,
Three feet high and risin’
How high’s the water, mama?
Four feet high and risin’
How high’s the water, papa?
Four feet high and risin’
Hey, come look through the window pane,
The bus is comin’, gonna take us to the train
Looks like we’ll be blessed with a little more rain,
4 feet high and risin’
October 18th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Tom,
It is really soggy out there. Hard to imagine that we were having drought conditions a couple months or so ago. I checked pasture this morning and was amazed at how much water there was out there. Can’t imagine driving a tractor out there. Good thing you parked your tractor. In my area we’ve got some guys getting their combines stuck in the mud. And the big guys that need to clean out manure lagoons could be in trouble if the ground doesn’t dry up before it freezes. Being a “low-tech”, non-industrial farmer has its advantages.
Jim V
October 18th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Hey Jim!
Yup, she sure is soggy out there. I’m not putting the duals on the bigger tractor or else some neighbor will want me to pull them out in the next few days when they start back out in the field. It’s even to wet here to make fence! I agree, they’ll have a difficult time hauling liquid manure. I haven’t seen conditions like this in a long time.
Daughter Rachel and I were just out to see if I had to pump any water for the cattle across the tar road, (we didn’t have too), and I was driving along the neighbor’s bean field. Them beans are popping! There’s swollen up soybeans all over the ground. He’s losing allot of bushels. They pop right out of the pod they’re so soaked. Good time to be a hillbilly farmer and not have any of them industrial worries, eh!
It’ll be an interesting time when this gets all said and done with. It’s been allot of years since I seen the combines go down but I do believe I might be seeing some go like the titanic in the next few days. They’re sometimes pretty hard to pull out without tearing them apart.
Now let’s see here, where was I…. oh yeah….. chord of G……”I’m not under the curse…” Ah.. the joy of not being in industrial agriculture
October 19th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Tom, the rain ya all are gettin might be partly my fault. Ya see, I haven’t been around for awhile and thought ya all still needed some rain. I have been prayin for rain for ya all. Might of over did it a little. I’ll start prayin for some dry weather now. Things will get better shortly. God bless you and yours.
Guy
October 19th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Guy,
Durn! I guess I should’a let you of known! We’ve received about 12 inches this last month so it is getting to that point of “wet”.
Now don’t you all pray for dry weather to long, you hear
I’m more gunshy than ah… well I’m gunshy of droughts much more than floods.
And Blessings to your whole tribe up there!!