Northern Farmer

Any and all field work is done around this place, well that is except for picking eight rows of corn I left standing in a small field down in the lowlands. Some Minnesota 13 that did pretty good despite the drought, that’s a low field so that explains why there was a corn cob or two down there. Today I took down around a mile of electric fence I had on the neighbors place for some emergency fall grazing. Those cows took any and all green stuff right into the black dirt, the neighbor’s happy, I’m happy and the cows are still hungry, looking for something else to devour. Now to the south across the county road I have quite a few acres of high grass and brush that I’ve never had grazed before and that’s where I’m heading starting tomorrow. Gonna start putting up more electric fence and run cows there till winter comes in full force. It’s really quite a stockpile of Reed Canary grass and assorted swamp grasses down there. Save me a bale or two, big round bales that is, a day. So I figure the time spent putting up a single wire electric will have me on a better pay scale than a Philadelphia lawyer. Hay ain’t cheap!

Now for years and years I never grazed that land, never really had to. It’s the kinda job that one would want to avoid on any normal year, stick to the easier to work on lands you know. Had some cousins that would come every year a week or two before deer hunting season and they’d claim kinship again for the year so they could get soft hearted me to give them permission to hunt there. This year they didn’t even come over, just figured I was so easy they just gave a phone call to remind me that we share the same genetic makeup somewhere down the line. (Really, this has really been a one way street over the years). Well, after some heavy deliberation from me, weighing in the balance how much having the land idle and them folks hunting compared to saving anywhere’s from forty to eighty dollars a day for hay on that small herd, the nice Reed Canary fattened cows, clean, no manure to clean up, busting up some worthless willow brush for me, I gave the cousins the boot.

Enough is enough I say around here, first things first. Them cows have to eat and so do I. Plus this sets a precedence, now they can’t expect the land every year, plus they ain’t gonna get it anyhow. I’ve been thinking about that for a while and being that I control the land, anyone using it is going to deserve it. I have people that help around here, giving up their time that I want hunting out there, bring their kids, have a good time. As a land owner I get a little tired of people that could care less about the farm except what they can get out of it for themselves, for their own entertainment. I don’t mind folks asking to hunt on the land, in fact I very seldom say no, but they cross the line when they figure they have rights on it. On this land my word is law and that’s it, period.

So that’s a little thorn in the side that’s pulled out and thrown away forever. Back to fall grazing, I do hope winter holds off so we can extend this as long as possible because it’s saving huge amounts of money. Those cows south of the county road are so fat I figure they could live half the winter without getting fed, Ok, I know that’s wishfull thinking, but they sure are fat from fall grass. It’ll take me two days minimum to put up the amount of wire I plan on, but what the hey, it’s kinda nice being down there this time of year. I’ll be wearing some blaze orange so I don’t get my head blowed off and should just generally enjoy the days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 8:31 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.