From the Barns: Brush is a nemesis

Spring has happened in our country. That coupled with our recent rainfall has the grass really growing. We are still offering a little corn silage to the cows, but they are really backing up on their consumption. We are about to start calving, so the guys have been shuffling cow groups to get the right number in each pasture before the calves cause that job to be much larger than necessary.

We have been applying manure from the cattle barn since sometime in February and have that project complete. A couple of hog farms to wipe out and we will be ready to plant the corn crop. I doubt we have righted all the moisture shortage of the last year as the fields still dry off really fast post rain events.

We had a couple of pillars that have sheared off in the pit of the cattle barn. I think it is caused by the movement of the cattle and a very subtle bump, bump of the slats down on top of the beams and pillars and eventually the underlying concrete gives up and the slats settle down to fill that void. The vision of a hundred or so steers swimming around in a quarter-mile-long pit can cause for an already too short night to become even shorter.

The good folks from Custom Precast brought a truck with a boom down and we tore up one pen and made the necessary repairs, but it did take all day. One of the tricks besides keeping everybody out of the pit is finding a window of opportunity when the pit level is low enough to pull this feat off. Those pesky cattle add a little manure every day and the pit seems to fill quicker than it should.

Brush in our pastures is my nemesis and I find myself looking for every opportunity to do damage to every Russian olive and locust tree on the planet. The movie, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” is a good description of what my plan of attack is. Kaden and his drones are attacking from the air, the mist sprayer is blasting away from the ground and our assortment of skid loader mounted cutting and chopping tools are clearing paths to allow access to the balance of our attack force. My army of grandsons will provide the operators for this growing season’s onslaught. Their motivation is simple enough: better access to fishing and hunting spots — works for me!

Patience is the key ingredient for brush control. It takes a while for chemicals to get the roots dead. Rushing to remove the unsightly top growth, while extremely satisfying, can be detrimental to long-term victory. Being sure the top growth is dead-dead before you wack it out seems to be the best recipe.

The cattle business is pretty simple these days, provided you have a big suitcase full of cash. All classes of cattle are trading at record or near record highs and there are no oversupplies anywhere in sight. The packers and their pals at the Board of Trade have used every excuse they can find to try and break the market and yet even a war hasn’t dampened this wild run. Life’s pretty good out in the pasture — enjoy it while it lasts!