Hoard’s Dairyman – Trade you Rain

This is my latest post for the Hoard’s Dairyman Blog – HD Notebook

We graze our Guernsey herd for as many months out of the year as the Oregon weather allows. On a normal year this season lasts from the beginning of April through all of October. For these months we rely on the pasture to fill a large portion of the cows diet. We also rely on the weather completely, or more accurately are at it’s mercy.

This past winter and spring have been a complete lesson in patience, as the weather has been much less then cooperative. It started raining October 1st, and still hasn’t stopped. Meaning we shut the cows in a month early from pasture and just now, even though it really is still too wet, have finally sent them back out to pasture. Being the latest turn out any of us can remember.

Just how wet has this season been in our area of Oregon? October set a top 10 record with 11.25”, the normal rain fall for this month is 3.03”. Then February brought record recorded rain with 13.41“, the normal for this generally wet month is 4.56”. From October to April we saw 54.22” of rain when the average is 33.71”. And it has just continued through May, with all but 4 days seeing recordable rain.

There are often years that farmers are praying for rain. This year in the Northwest we are praying for it to stop. Not only were we a month behind getting our cows to pasture, every other farmer in our area is battling getting into the wet fields. Whether it be pasture, crops, orchards or vineyards even for Oregon, there’s only so much rain we all can handle.

We really enjoy all the advantages that grazing brings our herd, but some years the pasture brings it’s woes…….{Read the rest of We’ll Trade you some Rain here}