The Irrigation Jigsaw Puzzle

With the end of the haying for this year we are back into laying out the irrigation system. Last year, being our first experience, there were several issues that required major work, from buying a new 5HP pump to determining the best layout of pipes to irrigate maximum land. All that took time and unfortunately because of that and other tasks we were undertaking at the time we were unable to get a second hay cutting on any of our fields. This year things will be different.

Last year we had someone helping us hay, this year we had the same person, but next year we are planning on doing the whole thing ourselves. I bailed the front field using our old New Holland Hayliner, and after a few disasterous results we managed to get a good yield of 110 bales. The irrigation is now on that field so we will get another cutting come late August I am hoping and if the weather is good a third is not out of the question.

Beyond that we have 2 other fields that are being worked on. Moving the 5HP pump to the river side and connecting up the 6" mainline we will be able to irrigate both of them. The smaller will hopefully net us about 200 square bales in a second cutting. All of this is good news because our actual hay consumption in winter is small, meaning that all of the hay we have just cut can be sold - which amounts to about 120 round bales (that sell for about $20 each). As I mentioned because of the lack of rain this year during spring, this season will be a lean one for hay so we will keep ours undercover for a few months and anticipate the price going up.

In order to get a lot of the work done around the place - work that requires two men, I have found myself a farmhand for one day a week. He's been helping now for a couple of weeks and we've already made spectacular progress rebuilding a couple of our fences. I'm hoping that by winter we will have done most of the renovation work around the farm, from the fencing to reseeding a couple of the fields (they're full of foxtail, but that's another story!).

One important piece of news, our cow finally had her calf, a heifer, and she's very sweet. she's already bigger than the ewes so even at 2 weeks of age she's bossing them around.

In a weeks time we put our ram in with the lambs we got last year. They are now about 20 months of age so ready to start producing. This means that we will be lambing in November and then again next March/April. We have a dozen that will lamb at the end of the year assuming all goes well and this will be a good lead into a full milking schedule for next year. By April we will have ironed out all our issues and will be milking around 50 ewes.

We are waiting on the contractor to give us a start date on the renovation of the milk barn. after going through the new plans, the renovation plans and various permutations, we have a list of what needs doing and what needs buying. The hard work there will also be done by the time we lamb/milk in November.

Note: Someone requested more pictures, so I will attempt to add more in each post.