week 27: when it doesn't go as you'd planned

this week on the little dream farm

Ideally the first cutting of hay would have been done several weeks ago so that the hay field was onto growing enough for a second cutting in late-August, but it just didn’t work out quite that way and that seems to be the theme of this week’s note.

We had a lovely 4th of July weekend here on the farm and spent the holiday itself over at a neighbor’s house where we had the chance to meet a bunch of other neighbors on nearby streets that we haven’t met yet. It reminded us how lucky we are to be surrounded by such wonderful community.

Farmer John got to mowing the hay field a few days ago and then his brother came by with the hay rake and combed that all into windrows so that John could come back with the baler and turn it into giant round bales of hay that they’ll load up onto a huge wagon and take back down to their farm to feed their cows during winter.

We’re going to be cutting it real close (my puns are always intended) if we get a second cutting of hay at all. It’ll depend on how much rain we get in the coming weeks. There are thunderstorms in the forecast every day of the week just about as far out as the 10-day forecast, but those mostly shake out to be a short passing storm or it misses us entirely.

If the field doesn’t grow to a certain point, it becomes cost prohibitive for John in fuel costs for a sub-par cutting. The downside for us is that we rely on the second-cutting hay for the donkeys (it has a higher protein content and is more palatable to equines—first cutting hay generally tends to be more coarse) that John makes into square bales that are more manageable for us to handle day to day with just two donkeys to feed.

Last year, the first cutting was so late and the summer was so dry that we never got to a second cutting. John had to bring in square bales from another field he leases to supply our hay for the winter. With it being July, it’s feeling quite similar to last year’s haying, so you’ll just have to stick around to see how it all shakes out—we’re eager to know, too!

Speaking of things shaking out…I would have been spending this weekend running around like a lunatic getting the farm ready, my work and business loose ends all tied up, and helping prep Chris for me to be away in Alaska for a week staying on the peony farm. I was set to leave out of Newark on Monday afternoon for a straight through flight to Anchorage.

Several weeks ago I wrote the farmer in Alaska for any last-minute things I should prepare for or be thinking about for my trip. She responded that they hadn’t had temps over 60 degrees for more than two days so far this year, and that with the weather predicted to remain the same into July, it was looking like they’d have no blooms by the time I was set to arrive.

This week we hopped on the phone to talk it through and decided there’d be so little for me to learn that it’d be best to move the trip. Their season will be very late this year and hopefully it still ends up a highly productive one, because they’ve had to cancel all their orders to date thus far or try and source what they can from different farms to make up some of their losses.

My heart goes out to them and I offered that I could either come out and be of assistance through the mess or cancel the trip so as not to add to the stress. Ultimately she left the decision up to me, and I elected to cancel. Her husband just passed away in March and between that and a really tough farming season I can imagine they could use less on their plates right about now.

It’s possible I could look to go in August but here on the farm the Cut Flower Patch will be in it’s full glory, which I just so badly don’t want to miss. Perhaps Alaska can wait until next year and that the season is a little easier on Alaska peony farmers next year.

I’d mentioned a few weeks ago that the LDF cows unfortunately came down with a case of pinkeye. It’s very common for cattle (and other farm animals but from what I’ve read it doesn’t cross species and is specific to each species, so sheep won’t pass it to cattle and vice versa), very pesky to treat, and it spreads like crazy.

Farmer John opted for the most conservative approach to treating them—which is a bovine pinkeye spray, and Chris and I opted to help out by taking on eye spraying duty each day. John brought up a bunch of grain, some bottles of the medicine and showed us how to do it so that we could save him the trip of having to come by the farm every day to go wander the pastures and treat them.

Sadly, the spray didn’t do much good, and the cattle will need to be treated with antibiotics. In order to do that John needs to be able to get them into his chute to give injections and so his only option was to corral the cows, load them onto the trailer, and take them back down to his farm so he could treat them there.

He has a separate barn space he’ll keep these 11 cattle in so that the pinkeye doesn’t spread to the rest of his herd (they manage several hundred cattle) and by the time they’re fully on the mend it’s getting to be late in the season and it’s a ton of work to load them all up again and bring them back here.

We’re so happy they’re going on to get the care they need, because pinkeye can and often does cause blindness in cattle given how hard it can be to treat. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to the LDF cows here on the farm for this season. John and his brother loaded them up Friday mid-morning and it sure does feel quieter and less like a farm without them.

Hopefully this Farm Note doesn’t come across as complaining or ho-humming about because that certainly isn’t the case. When it comes to farming…or I should say especially when it comes to farming, things quite often don’t go as planned and we’re rolling with it and taking everything in stride.

It’s so many different things that are totally out of our control that all we can do is make the very best decisions with the information we have at hand and give our very best effort…the rest sort of just falls into place along the way.

So that’s the news on this 27th week of 2023 from here on the Little Dream Farm. Let’s leave things on a high note here because there’s so much good stuff too and so many things to be grateful for…one of which is a growing, blooming, jungle-like Cut Flower Patch which is about to erupt in a burst of color! Would you take a look at that! Who would have though just a bunch of handfuls of tiny little seeds would turn into this glorious flower garden! Now that is something to smile about!

Tell me—what’s going your way these days? What’s maybe something that isn’t or hasn’t gone quite as planned??

We always love hearing about what’s going on in your corner of the world so feel free to share as little or as much as you’d like—we read it all!