[dominiquer60]

In New York State politics we have a big divide, New York State vs. New York City. Sort of a country vs. city thing overly simplified. Up until a couple years ago we had many politicians that were farmers or grew up on a farm or even just owned pleasure horses, they had some connection to rural living. Yesterday we were down to one state senator that had a direct connection, a dairy farmer from the northwest part of the state were winter is an understatement. Today we don’t even have him anymore. It will be very hard to get legislatures to understand what impact their bills will have on the less than 1% of the population that is responsible for producing food and the number 1# industry in our state (since wall street’s problems Ag has taken the top again). New York State farmers have some of the highest costs of doing business in this country and I fear that we haven’t seen anything yet.

[dominiquer60]

I don’t know much about the sulky plow, but some good advice I got at our field days was to adjust one thing at a time. If you adjust a few things at once you don’t really know which one to correct next. Very sharp looking plow, enjoy!

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Glad we got the chance to hang out at field days, it is nice to have a real life personality to go with the DAP words:) It was also nice to meet so many DAPers in one place. I am glad that your trip was a success, roadside sleeping and all. I am sure that going back to life as normal brings some relief. Enjoy the memories and come on back anytime to make some more.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

No problem, but we were way off last night. The book for our Gehl grinder mixer recommends 3/4″ to 1 1/4″ for whole ears of corn, you will have to play around for what works best for the coarseness that you want, and the power that you have to run the mill. Good Luck.

[dominiquer60]

So I found it, the variety is Goliath, the super tall silo corn. The OP is white, but if you wanted to tinker with gehybridizing the hybrid Goliath is yellow. This guy managed to “naturalize” his Goliath to get it down to being 105 day corn by saving his own seed. He originally got the Goliath from Cherrygal.

We tried Goliath ourselves this year and it truly is the prize winner for tallest stalk at both fairs that we go to. We planted one bag with our usual silage corn and it looked to be on steroids. We did experience a little lodging right before chopping, but with our drought and little moisture there was not much strength left to the plants. Some of the seed hung around the hopper for a few fields, most of that didn’t pollinate well because it is such a longer day variety than we normally plant. But we did find a few here and there that have nice white ears with a couple flecks of yellow. I want to try a bag again and hope that it is a more normal year next year, but we shall see. We saved a few ears to replant for jumbo show corn.

I hope to try a hominy variety next year, the varieties are too long a day for this area, but if I start them inside and transplant a pound of seed out early and cover, I may get some good corn for grits and/or pazole. We try to find a different new crop every year, this year it is sugar cane, 6 feet tall and growing, it is time to bring it into the sunroom in the house. I hope to harvest it this winter.

Good Luck,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

We use a rope around the neck to get them off the trailer and then some how get their head in a stanchion in the barn. The little ones get a bailing twine collar and a short length of chain attached to the calf manger. You could try a collar, it will be harder to have control over her but if you are just going to tie her up it would be less irritating to her than a halter. Cattle just take time, before you know it you will be scratching her withers, cattle are good at teaching patience.

[dominiquer60]

Tying a bovine up does seem to have its merit in settling them. In the spring we catch our young cattle in a creep feeder and then bring them into the barn for health care including making steers out of the bull calves. The first couple of days are tough being weaned and in a strange place but after a while they accept that they cannot get away and that we are OK because we bring them food and water. Before you know it you can scratch their heads and take the shedding blade to them. Then they are sold by the pound to our usual customers that like our calm feeders and will pay $1/lb no matter what the auction up the road is getting.

Last year one guy wanted one before it settled down being tied up in our barn. He thought that we didn’t do a good enough job making him a steer, the steer stomped an charged at the stall door or at the fence when the family was in the yard. This being his first bovine, he didn’t know what to do, so he finally just made burger out of him many months sooner than he wanted to. He also found out that we really did steer him just fine, contrary to what he wanted to think. I am sure that you have what it takes to get this highland heifer to at least be comfortable around you, growing larger while the freezer awaits.

I also have beef friends that use the tractor method to train beef to lead, they also leave a halter on to catch them at first and tie the show string up in the barn everyday for a while. This is for feeding and to just get them used to being tied up.

Good Luck with her, and remember in self defense a good tap on the nose may help if you find her charging you at close distance, it saved me once with an angus cow, always good to carry a big stick and to speak softly.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

1/4″ may work well, it takes longer to grind the whole ear compared to shell corn. I will consult Uncle David tomorrow, he is the official feed maker here, Dale and his father can if they have too, but David is the expert and will know for sure. I am still working on finding the name of that OP corn, I had lost contact with the guy, but I think I just found him on facebook, I’ll get it soon.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Darn you NY with your taxes against farmers and redneck tree huggers! (said with angry clenched fist).

At this point I just hope the trailer is still an option to purchase if I can get over there tonight.

[dominiquer60]

I was sorry to hear about your termination of employment this morning, I am glad to see that you have an opportunity to find a better job that will make you happy. Too bad you are so far away I would hire you in a heartbeat, plenty of vegetables still to bring into the root cellar, we even have a small amount of manure to shovel:) Best of luck and enjoy the extra time at home with the critters.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Dennis, that is what I was afraid of. I contacted Staab and they seem to have a good rep and prices are so much more reasonable than NY. However what I would really like is if I could just spray paint “farm use” on the back of my trailer and take to the roads like those red neck tree huggers in VA, that would be best. I guess I will have to consult our friend who is a trooper dispatcher, he may know more about such things.

Thanks for the comments all,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

I will try to find out, I know it was an OP with high protein from Shumway, but they don’t advertise it as such.

[dominiquer60]

We tried an open pollinated variety from Shumway for silage this year. The plants were huge and the ears were good sized. All of the corn in this reagion was too dry to make good silage, but it chopped up nice and we would try an open pollinated corn again. We don’t spray insecticides either, we figure the deer do tons more damage than those little bugs, so why bother, it takes time and money too. I know a guy in Michigan that would get 120 bushel from OP corn with just manure and lime spread. What you want to do sounds feasible to me.

[dominiquer60]

We had a really dry summer and a real deer problem so our yields are not great, but last night Dale harvested 600 bushels of ears off of a three acre field and he still has up to one load left to harvest (our wagons hold 200 bushel). The neighbor planted this field because he wants to reseed it to alfalfa next year, he uses a good amount of synthetic fert, and it may have very well been a stacked variety too. I am thankful that all the rest of the corn that will go into our cribs are not GMO, but the yield should be around the same depending on how wet the ground was during the drought here. Also a bushel of shell corn equals roughly 2 bushels of ear corn.

If you are feeding just horses I know of some really well conditioned drafts that eat whole spelt, corn off the ear and good hay, no grinding necessary, just a thought.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

In the show horse world many non-Maine residents have Maine plates/tags on their trailers. The ones that I used to know had no connections in Maine. I am not trying to avoid inspection because I like to keep my trailer safe and passable at a DOT roadside stop. I would like to pay less money for a registration than NY charges especially on a vehicle that will only get used a few times a year. This morning I received a phone number for an agency in Maine that deals with out of state trailer registration, I am going to give them a call before I waste phone minutes on hold trying to reach a government agency. I posted this because I was interested in what other peoples experiences have been. I would like to have all of my ducks in a row before I crack my wallet:)

Erika

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