Hi I’m Mike, there are a few things that can decimate a hay field.
Drought of course, fire, insects and of course hail.
Today we deal with just that and continue fighting mother nature on our Wyoming life.
Welcome back, and thanks for continuing to explore the ranch life and escape the ordinary.
Please subscribe and follow along as my wife Erin and I continue a tradition here in Wyoming
and manage a ranch that has been in operation for over a century.
Over that time this land has seen many hardships, from blizzards to tornados and today we found
ourselves faced with a summertime adversary the likes of which we have never seen in our
time here on the ranch.
It’s haying season here on the ranch, in fact I have been working on a haying video
for you.
I feel a little bad because this is the first haying video of 2019 that we have put out,
aside from one a couple of weeks ago about getting the equipment out and ready to go.
Rest assured in the last couple of weeks we have been making hay.
Hay that the cows depend on all winter long as their only sourse of food.
We have been faced with some rain that has slowed us down but we have been trucking right
along.
We have had help from some friends and that has been a godsend in getting things done
faster than if I were haying along as I have done the past couple of years.
But it doesn’t matter how many people you have around, if it rains, you are done until
things dry up.
Cutting wet grass doesn’t work well, and if you have hay cut and it gets rained on,
then you wait for that to dry too.
If its in windrows, ready to be baled and its rains then you have to roll it over again
to dry it out and once its dry enough, then you get to make a bale, but all it takes is
one little rain shower to slow the whole process down.
In a normal year we can cut hay one day, and rake and bale the next.
With humidity down around 30% and no chance of rain, the cut grass dries very quickly.
So far this year we have had very minimal break downs.
We have had to sharpen a few cutting teeth more than usual, but that is a good problem
as its been due to the thick hay we have been cutting.
That thicker hay has been dulling teeth and forcing us to sharpen more than usual.
So, for our first haying video of 2019, I thought that I would make a video that has
been much requested here on the channel.
A group of folks have been requesting a purely drone filmed video.
One showing the views from around the ranch and I thought that haying might be a great
time to do that.
Two birds with one stone, the ability to show some great views as well as some of the haying
process as tractors moved through fields, doing their thing.
It was while filming a segment of drone footage that disaster struck.
While filming raking the hay, I had our friend Dave driving the tractor while I flew the
drone.
As you know I have done both at the same time but since we have help, why not let them help.
I was filming with the drone about 100 feet in the air when I started getting some odd
responses in my controls, then lost control of the drone all together.
Here you can see me in the gator, chasing after the drone as it was moving away from
me, apparently under its own control.
After a bit I managed to get some control of it, and started to bring it in to land.
Not sure what was going on, then I lost control of it again.
And once the rain hit, off it went.
Odd thing was, that we had pretty clear skies, we saw a storm in the distance but we were
sure it was going to go around us.
Boy were we wrong.
The hail continues to hammer the drone, without the ability to control it, it really took
off.
Best guess is that the storm before it even hit has some electrical influence on the internal
circuitry, rendering me useless and sir issacc newton in the pilots seat.
After flying over a mile away, the drone starts toward the ground where it smashes hard and
still records for a full minute, the hail pounding the camera and rolling the mount
over and over, until it finally dies.
Who knows if the drone will fly again, but that is the least of our problems.
Fields that were full of clover and alfalfa only 10 minutes ago are now completely destroyed.
Hundreds of acres are pounded to the ground, broken off and left as just stalks.
We have completely lost about 200 acres of alfalfa.
We have also lost any clover and alfalfa that was mixed with prairie grasses.
Although I don’t know all the specifics yet until we get out and cut more.
My best guess is that hail, we lost half of our hay crop, which is almost guaranteed to
require us to buy more hay this year.
The storm also hit about 5 miles away at home, where Erins gardens took a beating, affecting
the bottom line of her produce business.
It also affects the Edible Prairie Project non-profit weekly produce baskets.
Erin’s produce is slated to go in the weekly baskets that start in less than two weeks
and now crops will be severely delayed.
Over all, 10 minutes has changed our plan for the entire year.
One cloud full of ice was all it took to cost thousands of dollars.
Depending on hay prices this year, it could between 20 to 30K and for a storm that lasted
ten minutes, that 2500$ per minute.
What I wouldn’t give for that hourly wage.
So yeah, I came into the house.
Gonna have a drink, then tackle the problem.
The 200 acres that we can’t cut now, we will let sit.
Maybe there will be some recovery if we keep getting rain.
The other hay fields, they will still be cut and we will still move forward with haying,
nothing has changed.
Erin is already, less than a half an hour after the storm, working on replacement crops
to take the place of destroyed plants.
Battling mother nature has become almost second nature and keeping up and moving on has become
a mantra that we can never live down.
No one gives up, the cattle out here don’t, they keep on eating, and we all have someone
counting on us.
The cows are just fine by the way.
We wont know were exactly we sit until we have all the hay put up and done.
But I can tell you this.
We wont be buying hay this year.
The ranch can’t afford it.
The herd size will be reduced to match the amount of hay we end up with.
Its how it works, you take you lumps, you may lose ground but then you rebuild.
Farmers and ranchers have been doing it for years, we may get knocked down, but we always
try our best to never get knocked out.
Erin and I are going to spend a little time regrouping, we have to concentrate as much
as possible on getting the hay put up that we have left and then we will come up with
a plan.
When we do know were we sit with the hay crop, we will let you know.
Until then, I am going to finish this, then go and hug my kids and then its back to work.
Please subscribe, because when you explore the ranch life, you never know where you may
end up, have a great week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life.