The title of this blog pretty much says it all....our crops are all harvested as of today. Yay, what a relief and time to celebrate! It is always a little tense until everything is harvested and either stored in our own bins or hauled to the elevator. When your whole years' income depends on these few weeks each year until it is all harvested and secure you can understand why farmers are in a hurry to get it done.
Just because the grain is all out of the field doesn't mean the work is done on the farm. His next job is to put up fencing around the stock fields (that is what the harvested fields are called.) Our cows and calves are all still in the pastures and need to be brought home. They will be put into the fenced stock fields and moved from field to field every few weeks until a couple of weeks before the cows are to have their new calves in March. They love the stock fields, believe it or not. The fields look like there is nothing there but there are always ears of corn that fall off the stocks before it is combined plus they eat the corn stalks and leaves too.
I always think it looks so funny to see the herd of cows and calves concentrating their time on a seemingly bare soybean field. The soybeans stems are cut about 2"-3" from ground level. All the leaves drop off off early in September so they are not eating too many of them. What isn't obvious unless you get close to the field and notice, is that those 2"-3" of stems that are left have several soybean pods each. Soybeans are like candy to the cows so they will go to those fields first and appear to be munching dirt day after day when in fact they are just in cow heaven!
Think John will be getting one field fenced right away so he can bring the cows home this weekend. The cows still have grass in the pastures they are eating but are so tired of it and the grass has gotten tougher as summer turns to fall. During the late summer or early fall the cows are walking the pasture fences and trying to get out to graze in more tasty corn/soybeans. We have had to put a few back in that managed to escape the last few weeks so it is time to get them home.
Besides the fence making John will be repairing and maintaining all the harvest equipment. We never put it away until it has been checked over and cleaned up. He will keep busy the rest of the fall and winter but it is less intense since it is between harvest and planting.
By the don't you love these clip art images? They are from the following web page by
Phillip Martin. Just happened onto this site and I just think they are wonderful.
Lynn
