Going for a ride...

Garry had to go breed a cow in the village of Pervy Mai (First of May) this afternoon, and I decided to tag along for the ride. He goes there around the field roads after crossing the highway, he says it is a more direct route than going there on the highway and paved roads. He loaded the liquid nitrogen tank in the back of the car and all his supplies, and off we went....it turned into a photo essay  and a crop report.

They were combining the cornfield across the highway

They seemed to be chopping the cornstalks into a wagon- for bedding?

 Not sure how much corn they were getting, it was the best corn field around by far...but was a drought year and there was no good corn field.
 This field is right next to Garry's  alfalfa he seeded this year across the highway. He doesn't expect to cut it again this year, but it seems to be growing finally, it should survive the winter anyway.

Winter canola field- growing like crazy

sunflower field with the small sunflower heads

empty sunflower head

 Some of these type of sunflower fields were combined and some are still sitting there like the one above, and some were plowed under in the summer during the drought and replanted - in crops like winter canola. Looks like that may have been a good choice, with sunflowers like these.

One field was plowed up this spring because the winter wheat looked terrible in the spring, and planted in sunflowers, which they plowed up in July and planted canola...with all the rain they have a great stand of winter canola, I am not sure if it can be too big when winter comes... and get killed off, let's hope not.

 We arrived in the village after passing the big apple orchard. Garry went to the house where he thought he was supposed to breed the cow, where the twins were born this spring. However the lady who had twin heifers was not expecting him. He called Maxim, who talked to the lady, who came with us to find the right house, on the other side of the village.

The lady in red wanted her cow bred, the one in orange helped us find her

Garry going into the barn to breed the cow.

 Garry said after her bred her cow, she said she'd see him next year since he had already bred her other cows. She showed him her four calves from three cows he had bred last year for her. One bull, one heifer calf and a set of mixed twins (one of each) - it turned out there were two ladies who had twin calves this year!

Across the street they were chasing geese

 Then we went back to see her calves, turns out she had sold one of the twin heifers, but Garry agreed on a price for the six month old one that was left and a three month old red and white heifer calf. He will go pick them up on Friday.

There were several mature millet fields along the road

The new alfalfa seeding is growing, spooling, ready for winter

They were combining sunflowers going into the village

Garry's millet is growing fast, almost to his knees

 Looks like there will be a big pile of silage to make, lots in the field, and some of the plants are coming into head as you can see in the photo. One more week should do it, and we may get more as the forecast looks warm still. Garry is glad he decided to plant the millet, this year we got rain unlike two years ago when it never came up!

The nearby winter wheat field looks good too

 His second field of wheat close to the village looked like something had been grazing in it when we checked fields on Sunday and we foud the culprits coming back from looking at the millet around six pm tonight. Garry took Maxim back to see, but the geese had disappeared, so they don't know whose geese were out in our field. They will be checking often for the grazing geese until they do.

Cows are home at six instead of seven these days