Hay Harvesting at Coal Creek Farm

It’s feeling more like Spring. We had a busy morning with ten new Longhorn and Longhorn-mix calves born overnight. They all seem to be healthy, and their mothers are tending them as they should. That allows me to focus on other tasks. We are in a drought, so we have to be creative since Spring is often wet. We used the Bush Hog (something that we usually do in late fall) to eliminate the briars and sedges that have grown. It’s nice to know that we won’t be dealing with that with hay harvesting later this season! It costs the same to cut and bail a briar (which our cows don’t like) as it does good quality fescue grass. Even though the tractor gets wear and tear, and we spend the time and fuel on it, in the long run, it will at least break even and most likely be profitable with better quality hay in our harvest. It is a constant struggle to get the weeds out of the fields, especially since our fields are planted on recently clear-cut land. We have spent the last fifteen years reclaiming what the loggers left, and our fields get better each year. Still, they do not compare productivity to some of our neighbors who have cut the same fields for nearly fifty years. It takes time.