Unwelcome May Surprise

[Gorignak]

With our first calf due any day....Deep South......85 degrees yesterday.



It has been snowing for 18 hours....hard and fast at times. Melting fast, or it would be a foot deep.

The garden is up, the peaches and pears are bloomed.....and....


THE DEXTERS ARE GRUMPY.....THEIR WINTER COAT IS SHED, THEY ARE SLICK AND SHINY AND SHIVERING.



This is the latest snow EVER recorded in Arkansas. It is also the latest / coldest high temperature ever recorded. 31 degrees for a high temp today.

[ittybittyfarm]

Oh Mike that is a very unwelcome sight! My photo from May 1st shows what it looks like here in Alberta Canada. It's been a cold, late spring with our coldest high ever on April 30th (our high that day was about the same as what you're experiencing). I don't blame your Dexters for being grumpy!

[ctownson]

We have also had a very cool, wet spring. The high here today was in the mid-50's and tomorrow is the same with a lot of rain coming in. My pastures look the best however! It feels more like the northwest than the southeast.

[Gorignak]

Actually, Charles....I'm faking griping a bit to keep my smile in check. We NEEDED any form of precipitation. The cold is a bit unnerving, but "Hotter'n the 4th of July" is a phrase probably born in Little Rock. We will wish for some chill then.
It snowed for 30 hours straight...HEAVY snow. Total water equivalent was 2.25"......5 degrees colder and we would have faced down 16"+ of snow. IN FACT.....we got 16" of snow, but the previous week of 75 - 85 degrees kept any accumulation to below 6".....still impressive.
It sure does grow the fescue, and clover. The poor guys that have transitioned to Bermuda have the thinnest green fuzz on their fields. The guys who fertilize their fescue heavily have it all lodged and flat in the field. it is anybody's guess how it all will shake out.

Here's hoping that all of you get some respite from the difficult weather. $90. / bale hay will kill us all if it continues.

[dexterfarm]

here is what I woke up to yesterday morning. View out my front door. Can you spot the dexter in the picture? We had about a foot of snow only about 6 inches on the ground at any one time. it was melting as it was falling plus about 2 inches of rain and it is still raining off an on. I had hoped to start moving some of the dexters to pasture this weekend but we are grateful for any precipitation we can get.

[lakeportfarms]

Go figure...we've been enjoying 70 degrees and sunshine in Michigan. It's ok, we've had more than our share of snow and rain over the past month. Yes, this is absolutely the best kind of precipitation you could ask for. Very happy for you!

[ssrdex]

We had our spring a month ago. Feels like it lasted about a week. Been 90 degrees here with nasty dry north winds. Remember my Easter pics of Lily & all that green grass? Lily & her 1 week younger cousin MC on 4/29...

How do you like my grass now? Would love a bit of rain ;-)

Edited spelling

Joel

[ctownson]

Over 3.5" of rain today and it is still raining! 52 degrees on May 5th - unheard of in the Southeast!

[lakeportfarms]

Joel,

Wow! What a difference :-( I do hope you get some rain soon!

[Gorignak]

Joel....looks like a good July day in Arkansas to me .
Charles....just what we need, a good Southern, Anthracnose rife, wet spring. But, we are going to get whatever we get....
Mike, that is a postcard perfect picture. Talk about greening up, I have seen shades of green, from the nitrogen in snow, that I haven't seen in years. You should be in good shape for a while.
A lot of us need to look at Hans's model. I find that despite the languid springs and autumns here, the grass has a hard time growing due to one or more outlier weather events. Hans knows when his grass grows, June 15 to July 1....winter the rest of the time.
My long term plan is to prepare for a much shorter pasture season than would be "normally" expected. I'll take the good years with a "thank you" to the fates, but prepare for their wrath and whims.
It is no exaggeration to say that we have had 7-10 "100 year" weather events in the last 7 years. We just blew away the "record low, high" temp for May 4 by 10 degrees.
3 years ago, during an incredibly wet spring, I was looking for hay for my blind rancher neighbor. I located, "behind the baler", prime, soft Bermuda for $15. / 4X5 rounds......25 miles from our place. I could have paid for the storage building if I had bought 400 bales of it. I think the lesson here is to double up on hay when the opportunity presents itself. There are going to be weather "events", whether we believe in Global Climate realignment or not.

[lakeportfarms]

It's not that bad here, Mike ;D

What you say is true about having hay stockpiled. Last year at this time due to the extremely mild winter before I had about 140 4x5 bales remaining. But I could keep them under cover and I did. I purchased everything I could get my hands on last summer for a reasonable price. It's a good thing, because I am looking at my last 4 round bales with another week to go before I put them out on the pasture. I will continue to feed the Highlands the straw and supplement until early June. It may be hard, and expensive, to build up my stockpile again this summer because I think a lot of people will be nervous following last summer.

By the way, my wife is a math teacher, and as one of her assignments for class (she's working on volume measurements) she is having the class calculate the volume of the various types of bale sizes, what an equivalent price is for them, and how many they would need of one type of bale vs. another type. Some of you might be pretty surprised and consider changing what types of bales you feed. I'll post the answers later today. Of course purchasing by the ton is one way of working around that, but many don't work that way.