The beginning of June was busy with summer fallow. The ground was so dry that it was quite a challenge to work the summer fallow.
The ground was so hard that most of the weeds were simply cut off instead of being worked properly. It will need to be worked again, but at least the weeds will be kept at bay a little bit.
We are still waiting for one foal that we knew would be later, but the rest have arrived safely and are quite healthy. During morning chores, the boys like to pet and scratch the mares and foals. Every year there are a handful that are very friendly from a very early age. Throughout the summer they will all become more comfortable with people being around, and their curiosity will help them to become quite friendly.
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The chicks that we picked up the beginning of June are also growing. There is one Columbia Rock that is quite friendly. She likes to sit on the edge of the cardboard pen and let the boys pet her. Ian doesn’t like the chickens too much, but James and Joseph are enjoying them.
Due to the dry weather, our pastures were drying up. One of the pastures at Landis was looking quite poor, so we let the cows into the crop land where Gregory had under-seeded clover last year. It took some pressure off the pasture; however, once the crop came up on the north side of the field, we needed to do a little fencing to keep them off the crop. We’ve had plans for a cross fence for sometime, but we haven’t been able to fit it in to the schedule. Necessity bumped it up to the top of the list this year.
There are a couple sloughs and a run that connects them that lies almost in the middle of the quarter that John has been farming in Landis. Gregory planned out where to put the fence that would cause the least disruption with the farmland but also not make too many twists and turns to make it a hassle and a project to fence. In the afternoon of June 14, we got started by pounding a few posts and running the bottom wire to make our line. After the little adjustments we made here and there, we were able to work on putting in posts and things progressed nicely.
On Father’s Day we went to Mass and then attended Gregory’s godson’s confirmation in Eatonia. It was a nice ceremony and Bishop Mark had a very encouraging sermon.
The next day was Gregory’s birthday, and the thing he wanted most was to be able to finish the Landis cross fence. We worked on it all day and got to where we just needed to finish the big gate in the middle of the field that will be used for equipment. At home the boys had convinced Grandma Barb to make a cake for Gregory, and we had birthday cake for supper that night.
The following day we went back out to the pasture to finish the last gate. We took that boys and Anna, and they had fun playing in the clover and taking Anna for rides in her little red wagon. They even started picking rocks along the edge of the oats field and tried to use Anna’s wagon to carry them to the rock pile, but Anna wasn’t too interested in that and she tossed them out as they drove to the rock pile.
On June 21 it started to rain. We were greatly blessed as the rain came down nice and slow all day long. We ended up with around two inches by the end of the day. It continued to rain off and on for most of the week, and by the end we had around three inches of rain with no crazy storms and no hail. After the rain, the crops looked much better. The pastures enjoyed the drink as well, even though it will take them a bit to green up and start to regrow. The rain was too late to do much good for the hay land, so we will end up using it as pasture, but we are still very grateful for the rain.
