Crops and cows

The milker ladies feeding calves after milking this afternoon

This morning Garry went out to the barn and pulled another bittok (bull calf) when Yana knocked on the door before 6 am (we were up - jetlag means you never know when you'll wake up.) There were three other fresh cows while we were gone, only the first had a heifer calf. Now that there is corn silage to feed the cows milk production has gone up to 600 liters a day. The ladies did the monthly milk weights yesterday the highests cows had 39 and 37 liters of milk each. The high cow was the Holstein-looking little cow Garry bought as a first calver last year, she had a bad case of mastitis, but the vet cured her with some kind of antibiotics. She calved for the second time a few months ago, and was certainly worth keeping!

 As I said in the last post, they made corn silage out of two of the fields while we were gone, because it has been so dry it wasn't growing. !30 tons from 25 acres.   They covered the plastic on the pile with dirt this time, trying for less spoilage from air leaks, I think.

Corn silage pile- under that dirt! beside the barn, behind the garden

There are many bad looking fields from the drought, there was one little rain and one that made puddles last week here in our village, the storms are hit or miss, we could use more than a few days of steady rain! The sunflowers look better than the corn fields, at least they are blooming, some are really short, like the corn they are trying to mature early, but in some of them the plants are drying up too.

The field along the road into the village too bad this farmer has no cows to
 feed, he could make silage out of it, it may be a total loss,  short and tasseled
 and full of last year's sunflowers....

A good looking sunflower field facing the morning sun

another dry corn field along the highway....

Garry would like to get some acres with irrigation next year like this farmer!

Most fields with irrigation are growing vegetables or soybeans.
 Just think of the hay or corn you could grow here with all this heat and
 wonderful soil if the land got enough water.