Heat wave

The extreme heat took us by suprise this past weekend. Neither we humans nor the pigs were ready for it. Pigs don't do well in heat because they can't sweat like we and other animals can. Very pregnant sows do worse. We lost two sows in crates on Sunday. Not at all a pleasant job on a 90+ degree day - pulling 500 Lb. sows out of farrowing crates and down allyways by hand to get them out of the building before nature doubles the size of them. Despite fans and water, its hard to overcome the extreme heat stress at the wrong time. Once the sows have lightened their load by farrowing, they can handle the heat much better.

At 3:30 this afternoon we finally completed soybean planting. And there was much rejoicing! We had a 2 hour rain delay in the game on Monday afternoon when one of those mini popup storms moved over our field. But with the high heat, sun, and wind we were able to get back at it. And it's still May. Now comes sidedressing, cultivating, spraying, and praying.

And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, . . .

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase