A picture of my son and grandson on our recent visit to the farm
The big news on the farm this year is the drought we have been having. It has been one of the hotest and driest years on record in Iowa and much of the midwest. A lot of Iowa’s corn crop is not going to amount to much. This is going to be tough year for a lot of farmers, not just the crop farms but the livestock farms as well with the price of hay and feed skyrocketing.
Here on the farm, Gander Hill pond has completely dried up. So has the creek that runs through our property. We also have a spring here on the farm that is not runing at all this year. Water was never a worry for me because it seemed to be so plentiful, until this year. Glad I have not started farming yet.
My son, his wife, and grandson were with us on this trip, he is in the army and is stationed at Fort Stewart in Georgia
My son Tyler and my daughter inlaw Sarah
We had planted 5 new fruit trees this past spring and my friend Tom wanted my leftover fenceing material from the pasture fence we put in. I told him he could have it if he agreed to water my fruit trees every two weeks if we didn’t have any rain. He told me recently I got the better deal on that transaction, he went almost every week for over two months to water my trees. I am happy to say they have made it so far, even though they don’t look the best, the hot weather has taken its toll.
This is a picture of my grandson and in the background you can see one of my fruit trees that look a little rough.
We did have a bumper crop of weeds, where we graded on our building site and put in our pole barn. It really shows you what happens when you remove the sod or cultivate how easly weeds can get established on bare soil. We didn’t put down any grass seed because of the drought. You would think the weeds wouldn’t grow either but they do.
My grandson and myself riding our tractor. You can see our bumper crop of weeds.
I had to mow the weeds while we were there with my grandsons help. He is just 18 months old and really loves tractors.
I don’t know how the trees we planted on our bottom ground are doing. We didn’t have time on this trip to see. I will have to report back on them when we go back in the first week of October. We did get about 2 inches of rain there the day before we arrived and they have had some more since, so I hope the drought is over now. So until next time, this ends this farm report. My grandson and I say…..
Bye.. see ya next time.
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