History

Today we woke up to rain so we got a break from breaking things.  It rained lightly most of the day and we ended up with 8/10 inch.  My job in town happens around farming so I had to adjust things to make hay.  I went in later Sunday afternoon and did payroll, skipped Monday and Tuesday, and went in today.  Bruce took a nap!  I was thrilled to hear that when I got home since he runs such long days.  There is really no news on the farm but we have had quite a few conversations about history lately.  The weather has given us challenges over the years.  In 1973 there was no field work done until the first week of June due to late snows and spring rains.  One year a lack of rain caused us to have had 27 acres of corn with a official yield of 0.  We have had wet falls followed by poorly timed freezing and thawing that heaved our alfalfa plants out of the ground.  That year I learned that alfalfa has a tap root like a carrot since the plants were pushed up enough you could grab them and lift them right out of the ground. We have had corn not ripen before a killing frost.  The benefits of having animals is we could put it to use as silage, unlike grain farmers. In 1988 it was so dry that the corn we planted in May never came up until mid July, and then it got so hot with enough moisture that it all matured anyway.  Most recently we have had 2008, the year of the flood in which one of the storms dropped 9 inches of rain overnight.  2009 was the year that milk prices crashed and our fuel, protein, chemical and seed prices hit a new high.  The history for that year is we managed to survive.  2010 was the year that Bruce had some medical problems and somehow we managed to farm between over two dozen medical appointments.  If 2011 continues to play out it will be the year that we broke lots of  big things and the milk prices were pretty darned good.  It will also be the year that our patience and sense of humor was tested to extremes....so far, so good : )