Transcript
Molly: Hey Jay!
Jay: Hey, I’m going to walk out to the field so we can actually see something more interesting. I was sitting in my car just doing a Zoom meeting. Today, we just loaded some pigs this morning. It is the 18th of May. We got some rain over the weekend, which is beautiful. You can see behind me. I don’t know. You know what? Let’s flip it around and I’ll show you guys the cornrows because that is more cool. So if we zoom in a little bit, there we go. Hey, we can see the corn’s coming up.
Molly: Oh, green growth is happening.
Jay: So that is cool. That's fun to see. That was not like that on Friday when I was here last. So we'll pan slowly. But yeah, we got an inch .40 over the weekend, which was beautiful. We really needed it. There were some storms with it, but we were just talking about that. There were some tornadoes I think north and to the east of us, but we didn't get anything bad here. There was a tiny bit of hail. Otherwise, pretty nice. But yeah, so I'm excited to be out here and see the corn. There was a little bit of wind, but not bad. Not, at least not right here. It's really gray today. I don't know if you guys can tell on the camera.
Molly: Yeah, yeah ...
Jay: A little bit of mist coming down. But it was a good, it was a great day for loading pigs. We did that first thing this morning. We had five that are getting picked up on Wednesday, and because it was cool we decided we would do that today, 'cause when it's hot they just, they get overworked real easily. And that's just not healthy for them. So we did it today when it was cooler, and we had an extra guy here. The butcher was actually on site this morning just gonna check them out, and he helped us load them, and he is a pig whisperer and he knows what he's doing. And it went really smooth. So it was awesome to have him here and help us out.
Molly: And they'll just stay loaded until Wednesday?
Jay: We put them in a different pen that's easier to load out of. 'Cause they were out in the pasture, and that's a lot of work to load them out in the pasture. So we got them into a smaller pen. We'll just feed and water them there for the next two days and then they'll be good.
Molly: Great.
Jay: So yep. Yep. So beyond that, we are taking care of animals today staying out of the fields 'cause it's muddy.
Molly: Uh-huh.
Jay: We got all the corn and popcorn finished up last week.
Molly: That's great.
Jay: And we got started prepping fields for soybeans. But we, it was really too dry to plant, so we held off planting on Friday. We will get planting maybe by the end of the week. If the weather stays nice, we could be planting by Friday. So get some soybeans in the ground and get those up.
Molly: So it was a little too dry at the end of last week, and now it's too wet, so it would—now it—soil compaction would be a thing, so you gotta wait?
Jay: Yeah, if we were to try to go out now, it just... imagine walking out in the mud, and then take that plus a couple thousand pounds for the tractor. Those kinds of things, like they have a really long tail. If you go compact something, especially in the spring, like you gotta deal with that all year long. I would think, maybe by Wednesday or Thursday, we could drive the Ranger or the ATV out in the field if we needed to. But anything heavier than that we wouldn't want to just because of the compaction.
Molly: What are the downstream consequences of compacted soil?
Jay: So when you get, when you start compacting the soil a lot you're basically you're squeezing all the air out, all the pore spaces. So you squeeze out the ability for there to be air in the soil, think of like a sponge, an open sponge, it'll absorb water. But if you crush that sponge all the way down, it doesn't absorb anything anymore. And so that's what the soil, that's what's happening to the soil. Then so when it rains, the rain doesn't go in, the air doesn't go in. All the microbes that are living in the soil are they're considered subaquatic, so they actually live in, on water film. And but they also need the air that's also there, too. So they need oxygen and they need water. So if it gets really dry they'll die, and if it gets really compacted to where there can't be air movement, they will also die. So you need to have that kind of light, fluffy texture to the soil that'll give them an adequate place, for them to live. So yeah.
Molly: This is messing with my categories. I think earth and air and water are separate from each other. But you're telling me that the air and the water are inside the soil?
Jay: Yes, both of them, and there's an exchange, and the soil actually breathes, too. as the air pressure changes with with the day, the, there's a natural breathing in and breathing out of the soil. I know that overnight after you cultivate, it seems like the corn grows. And it does, it actually does. Because when you turn the soil over by cultivating, you're releasing carbon, which is CO2, which is what the plants like. And so that'll give the plants a boost, and a lot of times it happens kind of overnight. The CO2 is higher first thing in the morning. So I believe that's the earth exhaling, and then during the day it inhales.
Molly: That’s wild. I'm eager to see whatever you're building for the pigs to get shaded and misted. Has there been any progress on that?
Jay: We've got the feeder built and used and they liked that. We did not, we have not got the shade part built yet. That's on the list, and we're trying to get cows out to pasture, but then with the rain we, we wanna wait a couple days 'cause they will also compact the ground. Maybe by the middle to the end of the week or something we'll get cows out on some pasture, get sent some fresh green grass, and they will be happy too. This green that's right next to the field, this black field beside us, that's the, some of the pasture we planted this spring, so that's coming up nicely. Right now it's just a lot... When it rains, you stay out of the fields, you clean the shop, you feed animals, and fix the broken things. I took a tractor into the shop today that needs to get fixed, and that we've been putting off for a while. So just kinda playing catch up sometimes a little bit when you get some rain, when Mother Nature blesses you with that.
Molly: Very good. Thanks for taking time to check in, I appreciate it.
Jay: Yeah, thank you so much. Have a good day.
Molly: Have a good one, Jay. All right, goodbye. Bye.
