Today hubby started cutting CRP acres, for those not familiar with this acronym, it means Conservation Reserve Program. For a certain amount of rent, the land is set aside and not seeded to a profitable crop but to a native grass. The farmer is responsible for keeping weeds at bay. Our CRP is used in years when it has been too wet or too dry by farmer who raise cattle or have dairy cows as a supplement to their feed. We had a request from a farmer for just this purpose a week ago.
We are not allowed to cut the fields until after August 1, unless there are a lot of weeds like Canadian thistle. This allows the birds that nest on the land to do so with disruption. We see many more prairie chickens and other birds of this type in our area since land has been put in CRP. Just yesterday I saw two little prairie chickens that were unable to fly yet run out of one of our fields and cross the road.
Ardmore will spend the next few weeks cutting CRP and picking rocks. For the first time in many years, we are not going to have fall seed our summer fallow ground. We have more that usual this year due to the wet and cold spring. We were only able to put in 75 acres out of 420. We are not big farmers as you can see. We own about 900 acres, which means we are very small farmers, but this is enough for one person to farm.
Five things I am thankful for today: Finding my head set under the seat of my car (I had been looking for it for two weeks and didn't think to look under the seat until I let the Holy Spirit guide me), grown grandchildren, being able to walk to the Roseau River, music of all sorts, and the museum staff.
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