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Alabama people....

Did you get ANY Kola...............

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Rain that is?
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I got 4/10 Monday afternoon, 2.4 inches Tuesday morning(lucky to have a strong storm come right over me), and 7/10 Tuesday afternoon. More water than I've had since January.
 
The first four months of this year we got almost double noormal rainfall - - - then it stopped. Cold mud and the pastures did not grow. Now hot and dry.

7/10 for the month of May and 2/10 so far this month.

The weather man has promised us 1 to 2 inches Friday night and again Saterday - - - My main hay field made over 100 round bales last year first cutting and made 42 this year with no regrowth to speak of.

We have water deep and so the pure Alfalfa fields are at least growing some - - - I plowed and replanted about 18 acres to alfalfa and it is not doing anything - - - most seems to have germinated and if we get rain I still have hope.
 
We drove down to Kentucky last weekend and even poked into Tennesse a couple feet and man, the whole state of Illinois was DRY and it was eve worse down there.. WE had big rains here Monday and monday night but they were spotty. We got 1.25 inches but places near here got anywhere from 2-3 inches all the way to zero... Forcasted again for Tomor night and such but we shall see... Another one like that could really help again..
 
We had our hopes up that we were going to get the rains that were on the radar tracking toward us but nothing doing. Radars must have changed because it sure showed us getting rain but it never made the ground. Next couple of weeks could make or break. Springs that feed our waterers are really slowing down. Ample pasture 2 weeks ago are going to wither away without a little rain.
 
Seems to be how it works... Our cows are grazing a hay barley field right now.. Was going to be winter feed but was about 1/2 of what it should have been and I wanted to save my apastures as best as I can... The two old hay fields will do okay for a while longer, those Alfalfa plants are real deep rooted but the grass and younger clover/grass fields aren't doing as well.. The swamp pastures might be okay, need to get out there and look more but the hil pastures are pitiful.. Sand and dry May/June is not a good combo for this area. But I won't worry to much, no sense worrying about things you can't change.. At least I am down 40 head or so from last year.
 
We finally got a litte less than 1/2 an inch Thursday night :D :D :D

We are getting a little drizzle now - - - - I still think the row crops are going to be OK if we start getting normal rain :D but the pastures are just gone! :( :(

I normally look for reasons to keep cows that are not quite up to par but I'm probably going to wean early ( mid July) and any cow who has hiccuped will take a ride. :(

I did have a 100% calf crop :D and all met my target of May 31st :D to stay on that count but I think I'll cull any that did not calve by mid May and I have two cows that have still not shed their winter hair - - - several of the neighbors have this as well. We had the weirdest spring - - - one of the neighbors got several head up a week ago and sheared them! :lol: :oops:

I have even been taking out two to three large hedge apple (Osage orange) each day :? and when the cattle hear the backhoe start they come and strip the trees in munutes :-) - - - I was going to get rid of the trees anyway but instead of taking a day and clearing the ground I'm taking my time. At least the cattle look great :D except for the two with long hair and this might be good for the ground in the long run. :? Most of the time with my rotating pastures I probably move them to soon and don't make them clean up all they should.
 
Thursay night we got 1.5 inches here... Friday night we got about 1.6 inches and it is still drizzling. Also forcasted for another inch today, locally more so we are doing pretty good. Along with the earlier rain from Monday night (We have heard anywhere from .1 to .75 (I am not trusting my rain guage on that but I know we got at least .5 but my guage said 1.25 I am not sure my wife didn't get some water into while watering).. Ground is nice and soggy and everyhing is starting to green up again... Corn sure looks better too.. A lot of the farmers in the area will tell you they prefer a driesh late may and early june becuase the corn seems to developp better roots when that happens.. They would have preffered it to be less hot this year so the irrigators didn't have to run but the corn can survive early dry like this.. Pollination dry is what kills it, we have been lucky enough to avoid that every year we have been here.
 
We ended up with about 1 &1/2 inches over Thru, Fri and Sat.

Things are really greening up, more rain in the forcast.

This is the first year the cattle are eating the swamp grass - - - I guess they just don't like it but prefer it to hay. I'm keeping a round bale out for them but when 40 cows take 30 days to eat a bale its really more to make me feel good than a help for them.

I can't believe how good they look when this is the worst pasture I can remember.
 

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