October Sky

As I was out and about yesterday in the pasture, I looked at our burning pile, the one where we have a bonfire each year.  I've got to tell you I'm a little concerned about the bonfire this year.  You can see it in the photo above, but it has grown even bigger since then.  In fact, the pile is so big, I may have to re-stack it further away from the garden so the heat doesn't kill the young, tender plants.  We had a lot of wind and rain this year and that equated to a lot of broken branches.

I love the month of October because of the great weather.  The weather is absolutely gorgeous right now.  It is nice and cool in the mornings, with beautiful skies and relatively low humidity.  The skies are so clear when you go outside, it seems like you could touch the stars they're so bright.

7 Day Forecast - °F | °C

wed	thu	fri	sat	sun	mon	tue
oct 10 P Cloudy 85° 66°	oct 11 M Sunny 88° 66°	oct 12 P Cloudy 86° 67°	oct 13 M Sunny 85° 70°	oct 14 P Cloudy 85° 68°	oct 15 P Cloudy 85° 66°	oct 16 P Cloudy 85° 67°

Details for Wednesday, October 10
Partly cloudy. High near 85F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Evening: Some clouds. Low 66F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph.

Speaking of October skies, have you ever seen the 1999 movie, October Sky?  It is the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the first Sputnik launch to take up rocketry against his father's wishes.  I'd highly recommend it as a great family movie.

We generally launch rockets at family get togethers.  In fact, here are some pictures from last fall of Russ launching a rocket.  The rockets are re-usable if you can get them back, so you try to judge the wind in order to direct the rocket so that you can have a chance of retrieving it.  The rocket has a parachute and it is always great fun for our kids and all of the cousins (and adults) to chase the drifting rocket until it lands - usually in a tree.  We then have to throw footballs, sticks, shoes and other objects until we can free the rocket.  Sometimes we'll hunt for a frog or a lizard to put in the nose-cone and send the little critter into "space."  Great fun, I'm telling ya!  Excuse me a second, I think someone from the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is at the door.



Mission Control, you've been cleared for launch



10, 9, 8, 7, 6.....

  

We have lift-off!

This last photo above gives a good opportunity to talk about rye grass.  The portion of pasture from which Russ is launching the rocket was the rye grass paddock from last year.  It has been mowed short and seeded with ryegrass seed and then partitioned off from the rest of the pasture.  You can see the tinge of bright green from the rye grass just coming up.  Once it is tall, we'll let the cows in for a few hours and then remove them from it to ration it for the winter.  We normally plant rye grass in early October and I'll be showing you this year's effort in a few days as work is underway.

Obviously in the winter, the normal bermuda/bahia mix of grass cover on the pasture dies.  We like to offer them some green rye grass to give them energy and something to keep their rumen working.  Of course we offer them plenty of hay as well from the square baled bermuda you saw in "The Hay is in the Barn" posting earlier in the blog.  We ration the square bales to make them last.  We also have 7 round bales of hay that we'll roll in the pasture once it gets cold that they can eat free choice.  You'll never believe it, but I bought that hay off of Craigslist.com.  That's some high-tech hay, right there.  We'll put the round bales in a hay ring to protect it though.  If you don't those crazy cows will waste half of it.


Round bales protected from the weather

We give our milk cows rye grass and hay throughout the winter and a little bit of dairy ration feed, too, just not much.  We also plant things in the garden for them.  They love turnips so I plant a lot of turnips.  This year, I've planted something called Mammoth Red Mangel Beets.  These are beets that grow, get ready for this, into a 20 pound root.  You heard me right.  Twenty pounds.  I read in an old Farmer's Almanac that farmers used to grow root crops to feed their cows through the winter and Mammoth Red Mangel Beets was one of them.  I found them at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and ordered them.  I'll keep you posted on the Mammoth Red Mangel Beets.  They have all sprouted and should be fun to watch grow into 20 pound monstrosities!