Springing Past Spring!

So the past month of April has flown by without me knowing! It has been a whirl wind of busy schedules, meetings, gatherings, working cattle and moving cattle to summer pastures.  It has seemed to be an unusually warm if not hot spring this year. Temperatures around the state of Kansas were even breaking records! The family has been keeping busy with all of the changes around the farm. We have shipped out almost all of the cows and calves to their summer pasture except a few cows that are still lingering around the farm waiting to see when it is their turn to be put out to grass. The cows are very happy to be out to pasture, which is much better than being in the dirt lots where they are held for the winter season.  We were fortunate enough to even receive some much needed rain while shipping out.  Last year we ended up having a summer drought which hit more of the Midwest than just Kansas.  We are still trying to catch up with the rains that we missed from last year.  The corn has also been planted and is now up and growing, we were a little worried that it might have been too long in the ground and had not received any rain, that is when we got a nice slow rain. We didn't receive a lot but it was enough to get the corn up and on its way.  The wheat has been pushed along since spring has been so warm.  The heat and winds have pushed the wheat to head (the grain holding part of the plant) early. Even while at college Sarah noticed the difference in the wheat and how it even started to change color.  The winter wheat has been moving right along and some are thinking that harvest is going to be earlier this year since everything has seemed to be pushed up in progress.  We even have cut our first cutting of alfalfa, and it has been raked, baled, and put in the barn to keep it dry so that we may be able to sell it to other operations.  So as you can see things have moved right along with the time! Right now on the farm we are planting Milo (sorghum) and Soybeans for our fall harvest.  Since time has flown by and the cows have been out to pasture for a while now it is time for them to be checked.  When I say I am going to check the cows at such and such a pastures it means that I am going to make sure that they are all healthy and that they can get water, these are two of the most important things when checking the herd.  The very most important thing is that I count and make sure that all the cows, calves and bulls are in the correct pasture. If I have a count that is off then we have a problem. This is why we brand our cattle with a specific brand that is registered and no one else will have.  If we have more cattle in our pasture than what there are supposed to be then they usually belong to a neighboring pasture. The next step is to locate the culprit and where they got through.  If we have less cows and calves than what we are supposed to have then the next step is to find the hole where they could have gotten through.  I also would make sure to call the 'boss' Mark/Warren and let them know what has happened.  Usually there are no major problems but there are those occasions where we do have them. When we don't have any problems we put out mineral for the cows so that they can supplement their grazing, that is just like us taking vitamins and minerals.  The cows love to see us bring the mineral out and depending on the pasture they might seem to run you over to get some. After seeing the cows we scour the pasture for any unwanted weeds such as thistles. (If you want to learn more about thistle problems in pastures see my previous post.)  It is always a joy to get out and see how the calves and cows are doing as well as enjoying the peaceful tranquility of the prairie land. I hope that all of your springs have been enjoyable and that the time hasn't flown by as bad as it has here! Enjoy and blessings to you!