Our cows and calves have all been hauled to our three pastures for the summer now. The recent rains have made the grass grow which is always good. The cows are so content to get turned out onto the green grass but by fall they will be equally content to be hauled back and turned out on the harvested corn and soybean fields for the winter.
My caption for the photo above is “Watch Your Step”. This pasture has some washed out gullies but the cows seem to be aware of the drop off so stay clear of the edge.
John took all of the above photos as he was checking the cattle after the heavy rains we had last two weeks. (We had a total of around 9” so had lots and lots of water.) He went especially to check on the dam in a neighboring pasture. As you can see it is full, full, full. Normally there is just a little water in the bottom but now it is to the top and backed up the valley so it was dug out a bit to lower the level to make it safer and room for more rain if it comes. Thankfully we had a few days without rain so that some of the flooding could recede and drain away but we had 1.6” on Wed. so things are wet again but not to the levels they were a week ago. A lot of the rivers, creeks and low areas have had flooding and problems in central and eastern Nebraska. We don’t get flooding very often so this is new for many residents. 
I got up early one morning after a heavy rain during the night and went out to get some photos and captured the barn and the rain gauge (3.15” overnight – the day before we had 2.75” of rain.) You can see the water backed up behind the barn but it was not more than a foot deep at the deepest part. It took several days to all drain away since it all had to go through the one culvert under the highway and backs up whenever we get a heavy rain. I always say we have “Lake Greer” when we get heavy rains. 
This last photo is of our house taken at 6:30 am that day I was up early taking photos after the rain. You can see the morning sun reflected in the windows and the yard looks so pretty, although you really can’t see all the flowers that are blooming. We don’t like to complain about rain but we really can use more dry days. The corn and soybeans are really needing some sun and John will be needing to be cultivating to remove weeds before the crops get too tall. I know we will be wishing for rain before long but that is the life of a farmer - too much rain, not enough rain and a few days of it being just the right amount of moisture.
Until Later,
Lynn
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