Grass and cattle look great! The feet, miserable for cows and caretakers alike to deal with! Guess I'll stick with our dry, native grass (mostly Big and Little Bluestem) and other native northern plains grasses. Never have planted much except to get some more uniform hay crops.
This was a much higher than normal rain year, to date, and looks like we may get some more pretty soon. Pastures look great, but something is wrong with the native trees. Since we don't have many planted trees, I'm not sure if they are similarly affected. For much of the summer, they have looked like they were touched with frost, or insects, but haven't seen any of those. Suppose there could be something very small eating on those leaves, tho. Seems quite universal across the species, from Box Elder to American Elm, Ash, Choke Cherry. Even our tough, old, Pine trees look a little 'off', with more yellow needles than usual for this time of year.
Re. the sore feet, we can get what we call foot rot, but pretty rare, probably similar effect in that cows get awfully lame and don't do well. Forget what we use to doctor that stuff, probably whatever our vet is getting good results with at the time, but wonder if it's a problem in wetter times/places. Too much moisture is a problem we RARELY have here, tho this year has been a little different, even 'blessing' us with a few inches in our 'walk out' basement. And strangely enough, that came in through a window that is at least six feet above the floor, but was deluged with a stream of water running across our front yard, on the 'up-stairs' level. One of those 'can't win for losing' situations, I guess. Sure do have lots of great grass for going into winter, tho. We really appreciate that, since our cows graze all winter, unless we get really buried with snow they can't push aside to graze.
So...…….I will really appreciate any pretty fall color tree photo's any can post! Hint, hint! Most years, the drive of about 90 miles from Pierre to Wall, starting at Ft. Pierre and taking the Bad River Road to Midland, then Hiway 14 the rest of the way, is well worth the trip just to see the beautiful colors...…..but not so much this year, as so many of those trees have leaves which appear diseased, and looking like they are already turning brown and forgetting about the colors we enjoy so much! Maybe they got too much water! I believe we have had about 18" here, which is at least double our normal amount for this point in the year.
mrj