The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Patience has never been one of my strong suits. I have a very hard time waiting, waiting to start milking, waiting to plant the garden, waiting for kids to make it home at night. If there was a job to do, I wanted to get it done regardless if the timing was right or not.
I use to pray for patience. God always answered my prayer; however he didn’t give me more patience, just opportunities and situations for my patience to grow.
He made me a mother of four children. He allowed me to work side by side with my husband everyday of the week handling cattle. Needless to say, I have learned patience over the years.
Practicing patience in a world of instant information, answers, rewards and consequences appears anti-cultural.
We seem to be creating a world where it is difficult to wait…for the right time, the right answer, the right situation.
As farmers we struggle with the art of patience every spring. The snow disappears and we are ready to go, but we have to wait till the fields are in the right condition to proceed.
Planting season is a perfect time to sow patience along with crops.
Patience will be put to the test for many farmers this spring as we struggle with making planting decisions on the fly.
The biggest factor influencing our planting intentions is the condition of the hay fields.
For some the answer is obvious. Winter kill and standing ponds of water destroyed the fields beyond hope. Hundreds of acres of hay are being turned over in southeastern Minnesota and corn plantings are shifting to new fields. As for us, the answer is not so clear.
The next few days will determine our planting intentions as we wait to see how much of our hayfields survived. A couple of warm sunny days should wake up any surviving hay plants, but will there be enough live plants to harvest? Yesterday it didn’t look very promising.
We had the county extension agent out to walk fields with us.
Dan dug up a variety of plants throughout the hay fields. With his sharp fillet knife he sliced the roots to expose a variety of conditions. Some roots were healthy, some with slight damage and others were already turning to mush. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the winter kill.
We seem to be caught in a “catch 22” with more questions than answers. Is there enough regrowth to make it through the year? Or are we better off tearing up the fields and starting over with reduced yields for this year, but staged for a strong next year? Or do we combine both options by leaving part of the stand to provide for some “normal” harvests and tear up the other half and have only some new seeding hay fields? The biggest question to answer first is how do we keep a daily supply of haylage in the cows’ diets with dwindling supplies?
Dan offered more questions than direct answers but it comes down to patience. We need to pause, breathe and then take another look before we make the decisions.
Right now the new seeding hay field outside my office window has greened up since yesterday, but there are still unwanted brown patches scattered throughout the field.
I think this field is going to make it one more year, but I’m not so sure of the other fields. Patience. The right answer in the right time.
Despite the setback with the hayfields, Mark couldn’t wait any longer to start the spring parade.
Fields we know that are not suitable for hay crops are being planted to corn.
The parade of equipment across the fields is quite a site. The beginning of the parade starts with the honor guard, our biggest tractor dragging the disk and harrow across the fields scratching the dirt to prepare the parade route.
The next entry in the parade is the “clown cars” moving in precision formations.
The rock wagon and bobcat weave in and out of line across the field collecting rocks exposed by the disk.
Bringing up the rear of the parade is Mark with his 6-row corn planter leaving tracks, kind of like the horses at the end of the parade.
As for me and my planting projects it looks like I’ll be squeezing my chance to play in the dirt after evening milking.
With the extended daylight hours, I’m able to get at least some things done to keep moving forward.
The garden always looks so promising in the spring with row markers standing at attention waiting for the plants to push through the packed rows. Potatoes, lettuce, spinach and peas are in the ground waiting for the first real warm spring rain to wake them up.
Planting is an ultimate form of patience. By dropping the seed in the ground with a hope there will be a crop to harvest in 80 days takes patience because patience is hope for what we can’t see.
Once the seed is in the ground, I guess all we can do is wait….wait patiently for the right time and the right conditions for the next step.
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Column from - 3/2013
As their 4 children pursue dairy careers off the farm, Natalie and Mark are starting a new adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their Minnesota farm. Natalie grew up in Stronghurst, daughter of Becky and the late Larry Dowell.
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