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north of the 49th

L

little bow rancher

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Joined
Oct 29, 2008
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524
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between two lakes
so who's all getting rain north of the 49th , anybody buying rained on hay in southern ab , don't think anybody will be cashing in on this years hay crop ,I was always tolled that every dry year ends with with a rain , but in august
 
Finally we are getting some rain. It is just a month and a half late. I decided to try and cut some hay even though you can check the knife without getting off the tractor. It is down and waiting to dry but now the sky has openned. Well it will get the grass growing again. But it is going to be challenging year to find feed.
 
Finally some rain. The hay crops were dismal and I hate to tell you what the hay is "worth" on my one piece of rented land. We should be able to swathgraze the regrowth now. Hope it is in time for the cereals to get some height.
 
Our skies are starting to darken in the north again-- so I was just looking at the Canadian radar...Looks like quite a bit of moisture moving across Canada south of Calgary on over to Regina....

I think that is what they are predicting will drop down and give us some more...
If someone had told me the end of June- that our grass in August would be as green as it is- I would have been calling the Looney Bin for them... :wink:
 
Rained quite a bit sunday and monday, and a bit today. 1 1/2" all together so far. Luckily ony got 50 acres or so down getting wet, unfortunatley it's the best 50 acres :( Oh well, that's life in the fast lane I guess. Oats are still standing upright so that's a good sign, and this weather will do nothing but good for them.
 
Well we need rain. When one ranches the most important thing is to have plenty of grass to graze. It will just be challenging next winter. This is just a strange year. Deep snow but no runoff. Feeding three weeks laonger than usual before the grass started to grow. In the foothills we had snow and freezing in mid June. No hay growing as roots froze and dry soil.. Then when get concerned and try to hay a bit it gets soaked. Everything is late this year.
 
We got 1.5 inches through Sat/Sun nights - no hail, no real wind but a huge lot of lightening on Sunday night. Seemed there was a severe lightening storm right on top of us for a couple of hours :shock: Went to check everything the next morning and was surprised to find no animals or fences hit. The 15 minute storm a while back with 1 bolt of lightening fried nearly every electric we had - go figure! Everything is lush green here now - strange for what is still a very dry year for us. Grass looks washy like September but the grass-fed steers are weighing good - done over 3lbs a day on some since turnout in May.
 
It has been a really strange year.
I've never seen the flood gates open at Black Eagle dam for as long as they were this year. Everytime I went to the city they were open except this last time, I believe that would be close to 4 months. Normal is maybe 2 months.

The snow storm in June, the hail storm in July. The cool wet weather, it is just crazy.
Even weirder is our malt barley that was knocked down in July by the hail came back up and is producing heads. :shock:
the hay barley that was also damaged is coming back too.
I haven't checked our alfalfa lately, that got burned by the snow.
 
We've been OK as far as rain goes. We've been getting a bit here and there that have helped the pastures and crops, but not huge amounts. Last week our creek quit running, but after a pretty good rain a few days later, it's going again. We've been getting rain about every four days, and have been trying to time the cutting so that we can hit that small window of dry to bale in. Just when it's almost dry, we get a shower.

It's been cold. That's been our biggest trouble. It made the hay about two weeks behind, and the corn is not happy at all. :shock: The long term forecast is for us to get about an inch of rain on Saturday, and then next week our weather is supposed to warm up to actual real summer temperatures.

Everyone around here is still waiting for summer to start. I don't think we've had two hot days yet, and at that, our so called hot days probably only qualify as pleasantly warm days for a lot of people who live south of us. :wink: :wink:
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
The sun always shines in the Big Muddy. At least it is again today.
Click to expand...

Interesting...Cloudy down here again--looked like it was going to rain this morning...The weather bureau is predicting likely moisture for all of northeast Montana Thursday thru Sat-- with a 70% chance Fri... They say this front moving in has chances of areas of heavy rain- up to 2"....

I'm just waiting around the house to guarantee I'm over my bug- so I can dare leave the house :roll: - then need to haul a mare out to the big pasture... Grandkids are gone to Bible Camp for a couple weeks so won't be riding her- and I better do it now before the rains come...
 
Well this part of Canada happens to be quite south of the 49th and here in the central Great Lakes region the rains have been very spotty. We had about 1" a week ago and that was barely enough to keep the grass and hay growing.

We will be feeding hay in 2 weeks if there isn't a significant rainfall very soon. :(

A few miles either direction and there might have been a lot more or a lot less rain depending on where one lives, really variable.
 
Still trying to get some hay up, but what little amount that grew has been rained on more than once since cut. It will make an interesting year trying to get animals to eat it. There are ducks out on peoples crop land. What is the meaning of that? How long until winter arrives?
 
nice beautiful steady all day rain today in NE AB. Haven't checked the guage yet but i think it will be at least 1". We have hay down, but who cares. this brings our total up around 3 1/2" or so for the year and hopefully keeps it wet enough that we avoid the frost warnings out for tonight.
 
There's some serious hay mismanagement in my neck of the woods this year. In reality it happens quite often - usually to the same guys. Some get on and get a crop made, sometimes big sometimes small but they get it done. Then other folks wait till just before a long wet spell to start cutting, cut the lot in one go then watch 3 or 4 inches fall on it over three week period. I find in hard to justify harvesting feed mechanically but I really don't understand the guys that use metal and diesel to turn a perfectly good crop of grass into something with the feed value of poor straw. Don't get me wrong - I'm not criticizing folks that get hay wet once in a while, it can happens to anybody. But doing the same thing year after year seems crazy and a good reason to try silage?
 
It is nice to have that wrapper sitting there so you know you'll get it up one way or the other.
 
We have tested rained on GRASS hay (alfalfa is a different story altogether) and what it lacks is vitamins and minerals. The protein
is usually just the same as the hay that wasn't rained on. Turning
yellow from the rain shows the vitamins and minerals have leached
out. If you supplement it with vitamins and minerals, feeding
rained on grass hay doesn't hurt a bit.
 

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