the woes of farming...

So last year around now my husband comes to me and says, "Honey, I want to farm more."
To which I respond, " I know but we really can't afford you too."
"No," he says, " I will take care of all of it- you won't have to worry about a thing- it won't affect your budget or you at all."
Famous last words....

ours is almost this nice...

So now here we are a year and a lot of MY sweat as well as his sweat, blood and manly brooding  later to find ourselves with a bunch of really old equipment, a passel cattle and a tobacco crop that is in the barn. You might think that this should qualify as a good year. But, you would be mistaken! The weather here has been bad, really bad, and hot, really hot- this makes for a bad cure on the tobacco in the barns, not to mention poor growth of hay in the fields and really dusty feed. All this comes down to an oh shit situation...


Well the tobacco is in the barn but isn't curing properly- this means broken leaves, lots of waste and its brittle. All of this makes for less pounds in a bale. Obviously, you are paid on usable pounds so light bales are bad and right now we don't know if we have any usable sale product...

this is what you hope it looks like...

Ok, so we covered the tobacco issues now on to the rest- dry, hot weather means not enough hay- not enough hay means not enough cattle feed- enough said.

Last is the dusty feed- what we do have in hay that can be ground into feed is very dusty because of the dry weather- this causes respiratory problems in wean calves. This problem causes at least one dead calf and several more struggling and full of medication...

So, the famous last words of- "don't worry about any of it." are bogus! Of course I am worried because now we have calves dying, less hay than anticipated,with no alfalfa at all, and a tobacco crop that may not be acceptable to the buyers...

Naw, nothing to worry about! YEAH RIGHT...