Springing Into Action!
A look at spring on the farm!
Our farm is an all-year-round business. But as hay and row crop growers the way the spring starts is a deciding factor in how the year turns out.
March
Starting in March we begin to really prep for the upcoming growing season. We spend time in the shop finishing up preventative equipment maintenance, so that when planting roles around we can avoid big problems in the middle of planting season. We also take our seed delivery to prep for planting.
Hay work never really ends for us, we continue to deliver and ship hay, contact and visit customers to be able to cover their hay needs through the upcoming year, as well as work to better ourselves as farmers by attending forage seminars to learn about up and coming ideas on hay production.
April
Things start to get serious in April. Planting begins. So much of the planting season is dependent on the weather, so we aim to start by April but it’s hard to tell when exactly we will get finished up. In preparing for the current year’s hay crop we work to empty out our hay barns to ensure that there is enough storage for the hay that will be filling the barns very quickly
May
If all goes well we hope to be finishing up with spring planting in May, so that we can start mowing and baling hay. We also start to scout crops to identify plant pest problems and develop a plan. By the time we make it to May our physical batteries are about dead. We spend a lot of hours trying to get everything accomplished by the right time, so once we can the whole family loads up for a small getaway to recharge for the rest of the growing season. May is also the time that we start to send in hay samples to a lab to get a feed value analysis- it’s important to us that we are getting all of our customers the highest quality products.
June
As we head into June hay harvest continues. Each field is harvested every 30 days throughout the summer. Also in June, we start prepping for the harvest of wheat, because by the end of the month, it will be ready to be harvested and then we will have straw to bale.
Spring can be exhausting. This spring was particularly physically and mentally exhausting. The weather wasn't exactly on our side the whole time and some things just don't always work out like we expect them to. But at the end of the day, we are thankful to do what we do and have the opportunity to serve our customers.
