We finally have all our corn planted. We are late,normally it needs to be planted in March, but because it was so dry in April and May we could not get it planted. We have had a shower on a regular basis. Maybe this year we will have a corn crop.

The corn needs to come off the fields after August 2. Than we can use the corn silage to feed our cows in there year of transition to organic.

We are in the process to selling all our heifers. Because feed prices are so high.

Jan made a big pond, so that we can catch rain water for irrigation later when it hits a dry spill.

   Jan started on August 3rd 2008  working on Lake Fryslan in front of our house.

We have our fields cleaned up. There was no corn but lots of grass and weeds, after we planted it looked great but it quit raining on us. We now planting ryegrass and probely never plant corn again. Our cows will be outside for most of the year grazing.

We changed our mind about corn, we will plant 100 acres, because it will be better to have corn silage on hand to feed the cows beside grazing!

We know have been grazing the cows for almost 4 months, the cows are healthy as it can be but we surely could use some more milk in the tank.

A little by little we are going to feed them less supplements and more grazing.

We are buying still a lot of corn and our milk price conventional went below any record lows there has been.

We are know down to only 4 employee's and Jan and me are doing a lot of the work our self.

My day starts at 5.15 getting all the cows up to getting milked. We have 4 divered groups 2 of which get milked and 2 are getting fed a supplement in the barn every morning. At 8 we start checking cows for heat and taking temputures from fresh cows by about 10 we are thru with cow work for the morning. One of the other employee's comes in at 10 to mix the supplements for each group and brings it in front of the cows.Jan has been doing a lot of custom work to make ends meet.

To read more about last year read our newsletter link.