March Farm Update
Hi Friend,
It’s time for another farm update. Wow, has this been a March for the books!
Close up view of wheat growing in the furrows. The fields have perked up and started growing with all the March sunshine.
Every year March varies so much on the farm. You know March, it likes to tease you with warm weather one day and then snow the next. There were a couple of days we had all four seasons in one day. Because of the weather, March doesn’t have a set routine on the farm. Some years we can start tractor work, some years we still have too much snow on the ground.
Bird’s eye view of harrowing. Harrows breaks the straw creating a mulch.
We were able to start harrowing our fields early in the month. If you missed it, you can get a bird’s eye view of the harrowing process and learn why we do it in this blog post. Harrowing sets us up nicely to disk our fields. However, a late winter snow storm stopped us halfway through harrowing, and we are still waiting on the straw to dry out before finishing harrowing. If the straw is too wet, it will bend instead of break and defeat the purpose of harrowing.
One of our more colorful calves and his mother.
This month we also hit the 80% mark in calving. We have almost 200 calves at the moment, and are enjoying their youthful enthusiasm. Cows have a natural curiosity that is especially strong when they are little, making it fun to spend time around calves. They like racing the feed truck in large groups. They like to sneak up behind you then playfully run away when you are walking through the herd.
Another highlight of the month is hauling wheat to town. Every year we empty the grain bins to make room for the next crop, and this year is no exception. We are squirreling away a special inventory of wheat berries just for our customers.
We are encouraging those who have not signed up for our Farm Club to do so. The Farm Club is a wheat berry subscription service. Every month or quarter we will automatically send wheat berries to your door. No more running out and forgetting to order more. No more wondering where you are going to store your wheat berries (we’ll worry about that for you). The Farm Club helps us gauge how much inventory to keep up on hand for the next few months.
Best,
The Sieverkropp’s