ther is just no end...

[rockridgecattle]

...to the confounded rain
Never in my wildest dreams did i think we would have to bring the cows home from pasture so they could be on higher ground...in September no less.
Never in my wildest dreams did i think I would wade in 3 feet of water (to my waist) to chase cows. Not once but 5 or 6 times...do you realize the laundry that makes in 24 hours?
Never in my wildest dreams did i think i would ever see a 4wheeler float. I thought my husband was going to roll it a couple of times the way he was going. It would sink long enough to get a bit of traction. Every time he hit the accelorator he would float. The mufler would burp under water. Lucky no water in the engine...go polaris..
Never in my wildest dreams did i think I would dig potatoes and carrots in the beginning of September. They should be in the ground for at least 30 more days...onions who knows if they will keep. In laws basement has been pumping water continuosly. Luckily it is keeping up.
One bee yard is under water and totally cut off so we have no idea what shape it's in.
I know others have had a fight with the hurricanes, so my rain problems pale in comparrison. I just had to vent...sorry.
I have to say the lightening storm was amazing. Started about 8 pm Saturday night. Continued for most of the night, was still lightening on the way to church about 1030 Sunday morning. It took a break for a few hours, from about 1 to about 6:30pm then started again till near 2 am. In that respect the rain was a blessing...think of the fires that would have started.
.

Sorry for the ramblings of a crazy woman under stress...did i mention we had to dig potatoes already. They were wetter than soup. I sunk in the garden to the hard pan. Had to dig for my flip flops. Well i couldn't wear rubber boots now coud I? I mean think of the pull to get them unstuck. I problably would have landed on my butt, sunk down to the hard pan, then they would have needed the loader to pull me out, only to get that stuck, and crush what potatoes i had...
Well i must go and bury my head in the sand...oh wait, I'll drown. Maybe I just go to bed and hope its all a bad dream.... :roll:
Anybody got some good leads on some good gopher wood?

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Are you trying to tell us it is wet or something??

 

[Jogeephus]

An old man once told me there was never a good time to farm. I think he is right. Water, drought, you name it. But all in all, I'll take water over drought any day. Three foot is pushing it though. Good luck.

 

[1982vett]

Got some cracks around here you could lose a softball in. The good I try to find in that is cracks that go that deep ought to be as good as subsoiling. Just have to be carefull what you drop where if you want to keep it. Hope those folks that complained about the wet weather we had last year are happy now. Course thay are probably the ones that got 8 inches of rain in August. Heard em talking on the radio that it was the wettest August on record for Waco, Texas. That would be 4 times the amount it has rained here in 3 months. Just don't seem right but their isn't a thing I can do to change it.

Rockridgecattle, I'll trade you bricklike dirt clods for mud.

 

[Lammie]

It always rains in Waco. Why is that?????

 

[grannysoo]

Best of luck to you. You will probably be wanting rain next year...

 

[rockridgecattle]

after the drought of 2003, I promised myself to never complain about the rain. I would rather have rain than drought. I broke that promise. I guess i cracked under the pressure. I would love to share the wealth so to speak, and probably next year we will want it to rain. Funny thing though. THis rain is localized. 6 miles away and they did not get all we got this summer and 10 miles away a guy was crying for rain. 7 miles pas the guy cryin for rain, it was to wet again....crazy

 

[R. John Johnson]

I know what you mean RR. Plenty wet down in our corner too. Don't worry, the freight assistance will save us :roll: :help: I've got less than a third of the hay I need. I'm going to wean calves late September and put them in a semi-local feed lot and then put them on the Cooks sale in early December. The cows will have to fend for themselves until snow and then they are going to a feed lot until just before calving. That frees me up to go work in Winnipeg at an engineering job which will pay for a significant amount of the cost of wintering the cows. I have enough hay to go from the start of calving until green grass. Not many can say they have that good an option. Most people I talk to have only 1/2 to 1/3 they hay they need and no option to make any more of their own. I'm afraid a lot of farms suffering financially for the last 5 years will find this the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Good luck to you RR and all the rest of the Interlake cattlemen.

John

 

[rockridgecattle]

Are you trying to tell us it is wet or something??

I think she is red bull. I think she just took the long way around instead of cutting to the chase.

You have to realize, I was cracked up last night. I had to look at the comical side. i mean how many can say they saw their 4 wheeler float!

RJJ, the freight assistance would help as much as it did during the drought...that is the scary part. good luck to you to. I think we are going to need it!

 

[bigbull338]

i think she is tired of being in bellydeep rain.i know 1 thing i dont like wadding water either.ive never seen a 4 wheeler float.an i dont reckon i want to.now i know 3 wheelers cam float.because the 1 i had got rode accross the pools meny times.

 

[hillbilly beef man]

You need a heavier husband.

 

[R. John Johnson]

In case anyone wonders WTF, here is an article from last Wednesday's Winnipeg Free Press.

'It's a desperate situation out there right now'

SWAMPED hay fields are the final straw for an untold number of Interlake cattle producers who are planning to liquidate their cow herds this fall.

Still recovering from the BSE crisis and a downturn in calf prices, the farmers say they can­not afford to buy hay to replace crops that were drowned out this summer.

The province's agriculture minister, Rosann Wowchuk, estimated Tuesday that as many as 2,000 farm families, particularly in the cattle business, have been affected to varying degrees by excess rainfall this year.

The final straw, for many, was the downpour this past weekend that saw as much as 100 milli­metres fall on already waterlogged fields.

"We maybe cut one-fifth the amount of hay we need," said Ralph Hazelton, an Inwood cattle pro­ducer, who figures he would have to spend $40,000 to buy enough feed to overwinter his 130-cow breeding herd.

But the 62-year-old isn't prepared to invest that kind of money when calf prices are low.

"To borrow more money to feed cattle would be just ridiculous," Hazelton said Tuesday, adding he intends to get rid of 90 per cent of his breeding herd.

Others intend to do the same thing.

Buddy Bergner, an auctioneer and part-time manager of the Ashern Auction Mart, said he fears that many producers will sell a good portion of their herds because of the feed shortage.

"You're going to see a lot of (producers) -- they're going to cull a third, maybe some of them are going to cull as high as half their herds."

Bergner knows of one Fisher Branch operator, about 50 years old, who is putting his entire herd of 400 cows up for auction in early October. An­other producer is ready to sell off 150 breeding animals immediately, but can't transport them be­cause of the weather, he said.

"We had 3.3 inches (83 mm) since Saturday night and it's still pouring rain right now," Bergner said Tuesday morning.

Conservative agriculture critic Ralph Eichler (Lakeside), whose riding extends into the Inter­lake, plans to tour several affected communities, including Arborg, Riverton and Fisher Branch, with party Leader Hugh McFadyen today. Eichler said he's been "inundated with calls" over the last few days from worried cattle producers whose ou livelihoods are in jeopardy.

"It's a desperate situation out there right now," he said Tuesday.

The provincial Conservatives are calling on the federal and Manitoba governments to come to the aid of affected cattle producers by covering some of their input costs and allowing them to defer in­come from herd liquidation for up to two years. With the latter measure, farmers would have two years to restock their herds before being hit with a tax bill on the sale of their animals.

At this point, Eichler said, it's unclear how many producers will have to liquidate their herds, but it's obvious there is "a substantial amount of hurt out there."

Wowchuk recently announced a freight assist­ance program for producers who are forced to buy hay more than 40 kilometres from their farms.

She said Tuesday that she's been working with federal officials on a tax deferral plan in case of herd sell-offs. The only hitch so far is that such programs have only applied in the past to produ­cers who were short of feed due to drought -- not flooding. So the rules will need to be amended.

"We have begun that discussion with the federal government," Wowchuk said.

Joe Bouchard, a Fisher Branch cattle producer, said he will likely harvest only half of a normal hay crop this year. Fortunately, he said, he has a "fair bit" of carryover feed from previous years, so his operation may be able to get by without buy­ing any more.

Complicating matters, he said, is that many cat­tle producers kept their calves on feed longer last fall and this spring -- rather than selling them -- in the hope that market prices would improve.

"So I would say that the majority of guys were going into this haying (season) with lower (feed) carryover than normal," he said.

According to provincial figures released Tues­day, communities such as Arborg, Eriksdale, Fish­er Branch, Gimli and Moosehorn (near Ashern) had received, through Monday, 25 to 44 per cent more rainfall than normal since April 1

BTW 25 millimeters is pretty much an inch of rain. We are close to 20 inches since June 5 at our place.

John

 

[1982vett]

I feel their pain but the shoe is on the other foot. I have already fed over half (66 rolls) of this years hay crop (117 rolls) because of the lack of rain. I have gotten a total of 2.7 inches since the 15th of May.