May 05 - New Baler - Ducks

Koenig Equipment, our local John Deere dealer, delivered my new 446 Round baler this past Friday. We have always had a wire tie standard size square baler and have never had a round baler before so it will be a new experience. I was always very much against round bales due to loss of hay during feeding, but three years experience with our green chop/round bale feeder wagons has removed that worry. Now I only have to worry about Winter storage!

Had some old friends from Western Michigan and Lake Erie over on Saturday. We loaded into the golf cart to tour the pasture and the calves. I think an electric golf cart is the perfect way to tour the pastures. No sound, medium speed and low to the grass. It allows you to really experience a nice day, and drive right up to and in between the cows. We saw that our resident families of Canadian Geese are back in the pasture and we now have a new good size family of wood ducks in the creek and stream. The calves enjoy chasing the geese and I think the geese go out of their way to get the calves attention. The grass is coming well but the clover is really kicking in!

We spent the morning planting some new trees around the barn and office. I've wanted to do that for several years and finally got around to it. We cleaned up the corn planter for the year. Hosed & wiped it down and then oiled it up for storage. Rain is expected this afternoon. We will start on soybeans as soon as the weather breaks. We can put in 100-140 acres per day depending on how hard we push.

May 12 - Beans started, Calves weighed

We started drilling soybeans this past week. We had two good days and have 230 acres in the ground. We had some nice rain over the weekend and the hay fields are starting to look better. The first corn is just barely pushing through the ground. We could use a little heat to get it up the rest of the way. It is to be only in the low 50 degree F this week for our highs.

Did some updating on the Stewart Seeds Web site this weekend. I am happy with the modifications. We weaned the Fall calves this past week as well. I am very pleased with the weights. I will be posting them as soon as we get the adjusted figures back from the Association. The Finks 6148 bulls are impressing me more each day. We ran the oldest Heiress across the scales at 515 lbs. pretty good for a December 20th heifer. These Fall calves definitely are the cream of the crop.

May 19 - Beans done, Ohio Preview

We finished drilling soybeans this past Thursday morning. The acreage meter said 475 but the maps say 460, the end rows throw off the meter a bit. The corn is all looking very good! One of the strongest emerged populations in recent years. We had some nice rain over the night, 95/100 inch. This, with the warmer temperatures should start to pop some of the beans as well.

We are getting the cattle ready for the Ohio Angus Preview next month. I'll start clipping today and we are having hooves trimmed on Wednesday. We are getting the Tag #291 daughter of Julie of Manx with her Tag #345 heifer by EXT ready for the young cow/calf class. Julie was twice a class winner at the Atlantic National as well as senior champion at the Ohio & Michigan State Fairs and Ohio Angus Preview. We will also show the Tag #259 cow by Tonto that was our Reserve Champion at last years Ohio Preview along with her Tag #481 bull calf by EXT.

May 25 - www.angus1.com site online

It's official, the new site at www.angus1.com is now up and online. I am working on pages for several breeders from around the country right now and will be listing them there as the pages get finished and approved. See the services page for details and pricing on all of the services I can provide.