106.7f freakin' degrees.

[Hondax]

Yep and our stupid paper said 94f,.......losers!!!!

We had a sinking air mass that was dropping on our area. My farm or close by could have been ground zero for this mass cuz surrounding towns were not as hot. Thank God it only lasted a couple hours. The humidity was in the 20% range which is very rare for us. Not sure yet how many birds died(142,000 to choose from) so I'll update this thread later.
Fortunately clouds started to populate the sky around 13:00 as well as thunderstorms which are really rocking the skies now and the absence of sun has cooled things to 95.8f.
I feel better now, thanks for listening..... I doubt we will get any rain but I hope it pours....

 

[Sidecar Flip]

sinking and stinking

Hondax:

It's been hot and humid here too. I'm glad all the tractors have ac, an open station tractor could lead to cardiac arrest. Been a bad year for hay, well, at least for 2nd cut. We got all the first in, rounded and in the barns but 2nd., has been a disaster. I, we do a lot of custom work and I've had customers call me to cut, which I do and then it gets rained on, flipped, rained on again, won't dry, rots and gets chopped. I get paid the same but I feel for them. Most are livestock operators and need the forage for winter. I see my 2000 first cut rounds going up in value every day. We have no stock other than 7 Percheron mares so my forage needs are around 100 4x5 rounds a year but my partner runs a confinement operation averaging 750 head on a rotational basis and that's a lot of forage as well as bedding straw and cornstalks. He usually buys whole fields of combined wheat straw and then we round them. Takes around 1000 4x5 bales of straw and another 1k of cornstalks to get through the winter. Last year we squared around 5000 bales and sold out before Christmas but it's so hard to get farm help (last year I paid $25.00 per hour and no alchol until afte they were done) and most still couldn't last a whole field. Kids today would rather play computer games and watch TV.

One thing we have is a pool. It's nice to get out of the field, park the equipment and get in the pool and leave the "stink" there. We've not had too much bad weather with the heat other than the rains. No tornado's or hail. Hail is real hard on corn and winds are hard on wheat but the wheat is done now.

Just hope you don't wind up with a blow or a funnel cloud.

In regards to the heat, the heat seems hard on the R3 and it's radiator fan runs a lot, blowing hot air on me. It's like sitting over a campfire at a stoplight and slowly roasting my wenie.......

 

[Toystoretom]

It wasn't any better in KC today (I'm fairly close to Hondax), my digital read 105. I didn't have to work (Sunday) which was a miracle... cause it would have been 125 plus in the shop with all of the stinkin' hot cars. We've got some clouds firing up this evening but I don't know.... we are gonna cook alive boys...

 

[Hondax]

You are a regular farmer aren't you Flip. Yes my neighbors have trouble finding help baling hay but they always seem to find kids to get the bales out.

It looks like I may have lost a few thousands birds to the heat. I won't know the actual numbers until we get them out. I'll let you know more in a couple days.

What a day!!

 

[Sidecar Flip]

Farmer...part time for sure

Hondax:

Are there any "regular" farmers left, not many I think. Most everyone that I know that farm the ground have another job to supprt the farm, me included. If I didn't have a good day job and my wife didn't have a good day job, we'd never be on good terms with Farm Credit. In today's climate you have to be specialized to make it a living. Dirt farmers likie me are a dying breed. I have a good friend that does nothing but produce and he is doing well but produce farming entails migrants and housing and workers comp and, well the list goes on.

Hope your weather evens out and I hope you like my signature picture. It's my other Triumph with it's friend.

 

[Hondax]

Love that signiture pic!!

You can make it with around 800 to a thousand acres of crops(corn,soy,milo, winter wheat in rotation), if it's mostly paid for. Diversification is the key to success for the smaller farms around here. Cattle, crops, hogs, poultry, turkeys, goats, seed storage, seed cleaning, seed hauling, seed cutting etc etc. Most do several and do quite well. Not much rain the past four years so the crops, hay and forage are weak, but that's what insurance is for. The smart ones get it.....CYA!!

I have 100 acres that I rent for cattle. Sell the hay off of it, and the fescue seed. Plus I have poultry,.......hopefully! I'm looking into buying another poultry farm, then hire two caretakers and just manage them and ride my Rocket. I have a lot of catching up to do you know.

 

[Hondax]

Lost 663 birds from Sunday's heat. Many from the heat and many from heat related heart attacks.

Birds get picked up for slaughter starting @ 1:00am Wednesday morning if schedule holds.

 

[Sidecar Flip]

Hondax:

Being a relative newcomer here you need to elaborate a little. By "birds", I presume you mean chickens?? When a steer goes down on the feedlot, we put it in the "pit" and lime it down and cover it. Can't you do that with birds? I'd think that the mass of 663 birds would be less than a market weight steer though I know nothing about birds other than my wife's oven fried chicken.

 

[wilbur-t]

Lost 663 birds from Sunday's heat

.

Sorry to hear that, Hondax. Guess it could have been much worse. When I was growing up we had 2 chicken houses. The dead ones had to be collected every morning, the # of dead wrote down, then you carried them out to an in ground tank, opened the lid, chunked them in as fast as you could, and slammed the lid back on before the smell knocked your socks off.

My Dad gave up regular farming after me and my brothers moved out. He rents out about 40 acres to a local guy who raises corn for his hogs. The rest of the 900 acres is tree farmed.