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.
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! |
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 |
Thanks for the kind words, Khuram. We're still learning. We try to read as much as we can and learn as much as we can from those doing the same things. One of the things we've learned is "just because it's the 'old way' doesn't mean it's the best way, but by the same token, just because it's the 'new way' doesn't mean it is better. Trial and error. Believe me, we've learned mostly by our mistakes. Cheers!
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