We're having one!
Yesterday, not so much. This video shows one of the reasons Liz didn't make it home to milk last night. All the roads approaching the farm from the west, north and south were closed, so she just couldn't get here.
Beck, Alan and I did all the milking and Beck fed calves while the boss went out and churned up mud getting the cows fed. Took him all of chore time and then some and he cut a tire on the skid steer on the slate banks that were carved out by the water rushing down. There is a good eight inches of heavy gravel with rocks bigger than my fists piled up in front of the cow door. Guess when they get the skid steer tire fixed he can use it to fill those holes.
It was hard to even get to the barn last night, normally a five-minute or less walk. The mud was boot top deep, the creek under the culvert bridge, which normally holds barely enough water for a cow to get a careful drink sounded like Niagara and would have washed you away had you stepped into it.
It was spooky to even step out onto the darned bridge. It has washed out several times, once just as the milk truck was about to drive onto it, and it always makes me nervous to cross when we are getting a lot of rain.
Beck warned me not to step into the water rushing across the barnyard up on top too. However, I am a shorty and couldn't begin to step across, it so I waded right in. Sure enough it was racing fast enough to nearly pull my feet out from under me. Wow! The kids grabbed my hands because they are such nice folks, and, although I would have been fine without, I was thankful.
What a year!
What a year indeed. Maybe read Jeremiah 29:11-13
ReplyDeleteSomething good will come of all this. Not sure what, but it has to.
It's been a wild and wooly month, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope this is not an indication of winter snow fall. Don't know if I could deal with that much snow.
You stay safe.
JB, thanks...I hope you are right. I know if the weather ever, ever gets back to even a semblance of normal we will be much better farmers, just by having had to be.
ReplyDeleteJoated, it is so bad that literally, when the sun shines it feels odd to me. We had light when we were done milking last night and it felt so weird. At least whenever the sun does come out for a few hours we get a LOT done!
What crappy weather.....I wish we could share with each other and maybe we'd both be happy.
ReplyDeleteIt's just mind-boggling . . . the amount of moisture you're getting.
ReplyDeleteCan't imagine situations like this:
" It has washed out several times . . ."
I get nervous when I hear my basement sump pump come on. Rising water makes me nervous.
Linda, it is not only discouraging, it is going to put us out of the dairy business if it doesn't dry up and soon. We aren't going to have any feed and there isn't going to be any to buy. We are hearing about farmers all over who normally buy feed and have been cut off by their suppliers who don't have any.
ReplyDeleteCathy, as I said to Linda, it is is looking like this is going to be the straw that broke the dairy farm camel's back. We don't have enough feed and you can't buy it...