Quiet

[SCS]

Have seen the dust bowl turn to mud bowl! And what about the rest?

[perfecho]

Had about an inch since snowfall in May...crops look amazingly good although yellowing at the bottom, pastures are brown unless lowland...swath grazing is just poking through, a year I will likely have to cut the herd in half, or more.
we are good on pasture, at this point, but only because we have twice as much as we need. Was going to put in more pasture, but seeded oats to graze off instead.
They keep calling for showers, but just won't come here....20 miles north had a deluge of rain....but we just can't even get some by haying ;-(

[grassfarmer]

How much did you get to turn it from dust to mud? Must have been quite the amount to provide anything other than temporary relief surely?

Here in my part of SW Manitoba we are in good shape relatively. Getting dry now but enough growth behind us by July 1st. Hay crop will be decent, crops in this area are looking really good. Moisture has been a bit hit and miss here too this year though, seems like it's all come from thunderstorms rather than general rain systems.

[kato]

It has been all thunderstorms for us as well. So far so good. The late spring frost did the damage here. The alfalfa got set back some. Can't complain though compared to what's going on elsewhere. Yesterday they got 2 inches of rain in town, four miles away, and we got 1/10th. Thats how spotty the rains have been.

How are you liking Manitoba so far? You really need to take a day off hang and check out the Threshermen's Reunion in Austin next week. It's not a far drive.

[kato]

That's a day off from haying. Darn autocorrect.

[grassfarmer]

Don't need a day off from haying kato - waiting for a custom operator to start. If he doesn't turn up PDQ it'll be going in a pile with the other stuff we are planning on silaging. Surprised how high the humidity is given how dry it's been. Not conducive to making hay so maybe we'll stick with silage.

Not fond of the proliferation of snakes and ticks but apart from that it's all good. Wonderful diversity of nature here - types of trees/forbs/birds/insects and amphibians. Even got a resident racoon family which I hadn't been expecting!

[kato]

Tick season is over now. It only slightly overlaps the mosquito season.lol makes spring fencing into quite the adventure!

[SCS]

Grassfarmer, when you are dry, two inches does a lot. First of three rains went sideways, rest came down nice. We are very fortunate. South of us ten miles, two tenths since snow left, their corn seeded in mid may is a foot high. Snow cover has helped us big time to get hay, and hoping the ones short get some too!

[grassfarmer]

Any rain is welcome when you are in a drought situation but if you have a 10" growing season deficit and you get 2" it can be tough on the grass and legume's reserves if they start a flush of growth only to return to high temperatures and no more moisture in a few weeks time. Can certainly bring some extra feed reserves to the table especially on the annual crop and weed side though.