francois you said cannonball and king of oil and I imagine koen on top of a hill firing off charcoal cannonballs with a crown on his head:grinning:
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Bad translation of google, I meant charcoal ball, but Koen has a lot of humor,
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All time high in number of tropical nights. Tonight was another one despite the rain, thunder and lightning we had for two days now.
Not enough rain to put out the fires though. The lightning actually started a few more. The weatherman says we need rain every day for a month to get back to normal.
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Again, we need an “unlike” button.
What are farmers going to do for hay? Do you usually get a second cut?
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I have about 3000 square bales I could sell them but I am thinking the delivery charge will be really high…
When years are bad alot of farmers send animals in to slaughter. I guess the tariff war with the USA will help the farmers over seas as we are sitting on alot of beef we can’t export here now…
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Only one cut of hay around here. Southern parts of the country cut twice. Prices on hay are up 3-4 times already. Eq to 50 am cents per pound right now.
Also, anything grain related, flour, bread, spagetti are expected to get twice as expensive. Ha, even beer, due to malt shortage.
Farmers have been lining up to the slaughter houses for some time now. If you register now, January is the earliest available “appointment”.
@DanNH, there was actually talk on the news yesterday about importing hay for the first time ever. Not only from European countries. Even Canada was mentioned. Time for you and @Wayne to start doing business 
The hay seems to be growing faster than I can cut ! Sure wish I could help some way .
On another note I had 17 head of cattle missing yesterday. It took about half the day to track them down. They had got in a pasture about 5 miles away ( about a mile and a half trough the woods and bush) and mixed in with a heard of about 150 . Long days work trying to get up and handle that many cattle when they already have plenty to eat and can’t be lured up with feed .
One big problem is my cows and calves look just like the other 150 cows and calves .
Luckily my cows have been around and seen horses every day of their life . The other cows and calves have never seen a horse in their life time .
Yep you guess it , if you are not afraid of the horse you get pushed into the catch pen , loaded up and hauled to Wayne’s place …
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Wayne I was going to say you need more distinct cows but atleast this way when they decide to eat the neighbors favorite garden plants you have some plausible denialablity…
I don’t envy you a day spent rounding up cows is not fun at all.
I have been lucky my cows are really well behaved probably comes from having so few that they all know their names and let you scratch their heads.
The other day I heard a loud crashing noise when I got up. By the time I got to the door the bull was there at the entrance to the shed just looking at me wanting me to scratch his head. I looked at him and said go back there with your cows. He just turned around and walked back between the two barns to the back gate. Which of course was half off and a mess. They had managed to pick the gate up and pushed it out eating the grass on the other side and when it fell the bull and one cow jumped it the rest where all in the yard watching. So I got the barn gate off about 20 minutes of messing with it the bull and the cow just stood beside me the entire time eating grass. One the gate was off I told them to go in the barn and they both just walked in like it was normal and didn’t bother me at all as I put the gate back together…
The other time they got a different gate apart this summer I went to the front of the barn and called them in to eat hay in the feeder and the silly cow who was eating fresh grass outside came running back in through the gate and into the barn. Being alone I was really happy they where so good…
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Jan they do ship hay from the west cost to the middle east. I honestly have about 6 semi truck loads of hay sitting here that I am looking for customers for at the moment. The horse farm 2 miles up the road shut down as the farmer retired so now I have a barn full of hay and the horses are gone… I am sure I can sell it. Ofcourse my issue is working alone delivery is difficult or impossible. Around here people think if you deliver you will bring an elevator and stack the hay in the back corner of a hay loft for them. If I hire 2 people to do that I loose all my profit on the hay…
Oh well I mowed another 700 bales today. That probably isn’t much hay compared to those big round bales that Wayne cranks out but it will keep me busy for the next couple of days. If I am really lucky I will get it all in before our next rain comes… Tuesday afternoon they are saying thunderstorms so I am probably cutting this one really close… on the bright side it is also the far end of the field where I always seem to get caught in a storm with hay down. The mountain seems to funnel the storms up there so I am really hoping I get it all in.
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Dana just made some chocolate zucchini bread, WOW! Best cake I mean bread ever, so moist. I want more.
Bob
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I just exported about another 100 lbs of zucchini, my daughter has some takers at her work
I can only eat about 5 lbs a week
Never tried adding chocolate
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Dana’s chocolate zucchini breads are all wonderful. Put 5 lbs. of zucchini in breads and eat it all in one week would be put some weight on these bones of mine.
Bob
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Hey, @TomC. I was reminiscing over old threads, and was wondering if your neighbour is still doing ok with the bears?
Regards,
Yes. It has been a very slow year for visiting bears-- the wild food (berries, etc) have been very plentiful. If you are interested, you could become a Face Book friend with him and his wife and they post pictures every day of their guests. His wife is Debbie Cesar if you want to contact her----- since she retired she does most of the picture taking and posting and her husband brings out the goodies for them. TomC
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Wayne don’t they ear tag cows in your area?
Good morning Mr. Barns.
Yes , some farmers use ear tags. I tagged my cows about a year back but many have lost their tags and haven’t been able to keep up with calves needing tags.
One problem of having tagged cattle is if they loose their tag and get mixed in with other cattle it may be assumed she is not yours.
I have to say I didn’t tag my calves this year. After the bull chased me it didn’t seem worth going back in there to tag them. Come fall I will have to sort that out once the last of the cows have been breed back and this bull can go away. He is one of those bulls that seems nice but you can’t trust him at all. Oh well such is life with cattle.
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Here eartags re mandatory for all animals exept chickhens and horses. Those get microchips.
EU is mad. I literaly have more documents for any of my animals thain l do for my kids 
horses eaven have a id “photo”, a hand drawing of their fur pattern.
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Bureaucracy rarely simplifies anything, especially if they say they will.
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Here ear tags are mandatory for cattle, but only if moved off farm. It’s supposed to be a part of the international control and eradication of mad cow disease, and for tight control of any food safety issue, to be able to trace any problem back to farm gate.
Practically speaking they are best tagged as calves, less handling and stress, but as Dan says, picking the battle and staying alive are key parts of the process…
Tags are fragile and a pain. On the other hand, they sure help figuring out which calf came from which cow, as otherwise tracking of that is easily lost as they grow. That information can be valiable to figure out which heifers to keep if looking for calving ease, and other good traits.
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