Thursday-We had 2 inches of rain by the time we went to the barn this morning so we were glad we kept the cows inside. I especially appreciated having cleaner cows, with the exception of 2 that didn't read the manual. With a forecast for more rain we kept the cows in for the day also. Bruce finally had the time, and actually remembered when it was light, and worked on our missing yard light. He knew what the problem was right after they quit but didn't have the time to deal with it. What caused the outage was wild grape vines growing where they really don't belong, and then wind whipping them around and tearing off a wire. The cows spent the night in the barn again over night. Mike is beside himself with nothing to do.
Friday-This morning we let the cows out on pasture after milking. They were anxious to get out and ran and kicked up their heels like they hadn't been out in weeks. Bruce had to do some investigating of the water lines since the water pressure in the barn had dropped last night so he had turned the water to the pasture off. He found the fitting that had come loose so he repaired that and turned the water back on. We are going to start keeping the cows in over night, first of all, to create a routine for them. They don't work very hard eating on pasture so we can feed them better over night and let them out in the daytime. Other advantages to having them in are less time spent by us getting them in and out so our days are shorter. We will let them out during the daytime for as long as they have pasture to eat and the weather cooperates. Since they get fed regardless we only add bedding them to our normal day. The dog is thrilled to have something to do, even if it is less than normal.
Bruce chopped 2 loads of corn and blew it into the silo to freshen it up today.
Saturday-My office is also a guest room and we were lucky enough to have the company of Jim & Jen for the weekend. For a change we didn't have anything critical to do other than milking and feeding so we took the day to go to the orchard. Company is also my excuse for being behind in my writings this week : ) According to the numbers on our milk tank the cows are not impressed with our easing them into the winter routine. Hopefully that will improve some this week with more routine but at this point their displeasure is realized with less milk. We have again contracted milk, this time for the rest of 2012. We have only contracted about 2/3 of what we normally do so if the price goes up we will gain and if it goes down we won't lose as much. We wish we had a crystal ball to know what to do, but since we don't, this gives us some peace of mind.
Sunday-Jim helped Bruce remove the silo pipes on the last silo that we took the distributor out of. Part of the agreement was removing the pipes so now we can consider that project DONE. Done is a rare description of projects around here. We are much more familiar with almost done or on the list so having it done is exciting. Bruce ran a moisture test on some corn today and it is at 30.4%. The ideal moisture level for the harvestore is around 25% so we are getting closer to harvest. The fall has been beautiful so the corn has been able to mature like it should. The first signs of mature corn is the browning of leaves. The kernels start to dent and then the milk line works its way towards the cob as the kernel dries. Eventually it "black layers" with the tip turning dark as the drying process continues. The longer it can dry in the field the cheaper it is for producers who sell their corn since an ideal moisture for that is 15%. If corn is harvested at a higher moisture than that it has to be dried so it will store without spoiling. Drying is expensive so the lower the moisture from the field the more profit for the producer.
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