Followers of this space will recall that I have been preoccupied lately with the difficulty of growing and harvesting small plots of grain to feed livestock. Until we solve this problem, our plots are in danger of dwindling to vegetable and fruit production only. Bagged feed is just too expensive to fatten a steer or keep a henhouse running at a profit. So, last spring, my pal Steve and I broke a vow we both made decades ago never to plant another cash crop. We seeded the 20-acre field behind the house to spring oats with an under-seeding for hay and pasture. I am sure readers are anxious to hear how it all turned out.
I was very lucky to be able to tap into 400 years of experience offered by the collective wisdom of the Driveshed Coffee Club, an August group of mostly retired farmers. Their opening position was “Don’t do it! You’ll learn to hate yourself!” but they eventually warmed to the project and left many footprints on my field.
It couldn’t have been a better year. A bit dry to start off but lots of moisture in the ground and rain did start to fall regularly by mid-June. There was a bit of a problem with crown rust which reduced the kernel weight but the under-seeding got off to a great start. So the two crops were basically fine. The swather and combine arrived in a dry week in late August and the crop stayed in a couple of grain carts while the elevator puzzled over where to put it.
This is the problem with oats in Ontario. Lots of cash croppers still grow them but only for use as a cover crop and they prefer to produce just enough for their own operation. There is a tiny commercial market in feed oats for horse people but that amounts to a few wheelbarrows in comparison to the gigatons of corn and soybeans that Ontario grows. I don’t think the elevator manager really wanted to buy my oats but he did take them finally. I’m not sure if he was being friendly or being careful to avoid bad publicity in the pages of an influential national magazine like Small Farm. Probably the former.
Last time I did this, in 1978, the crop was winter wheat and I broke even. Apparently nothing has changed because when the cheque arrived from the elevator it just covered the fertilizer and seed and paid the swather and combine. I did get to fill a couple of tote bags with oats to offset the fuel cost for tilling the field. I had them tested and they have the same feed value as grass hay.
So what did we learn from all of this, you wonder? Mother said it best all those years ago when you came back from a hockey game you lost by 10-2. “Did you have fun?” she would ask, which is always the important question.
Yes, we did have fun. I coaxed 84-year-old Mike to drag his International seed drill out of the driveshed where it has rested for at least a decade. It turns out Mike is still as nimble as a spring lamb in spite of two heart surgeries and a raft of minor afflictions. He was exhausted but triumphant after the day of seeding and reported to the coffee club that his old drill could now be advertised as ‘field ready.’ Steve was tired, too after circling the field about fifty times, but he claimed he enjoyed the day breathing in diesel fumes on a 50 year old tractor without a cab about as much as anything he has done since he retired from selling trucks ten years ago. (And he’s floated down the Rhine and gone horseback riding in the Rockies.)
Steve and I went to visit Mike in the hospital last week where he was being treated for yet another blood clot. We yapped away and I showed photos of the new hay crop leaping out of the ground and the steers we are fattening. We talked about ration ratios and cattle markets and the price of eggs. Then we got back to gossiping about the sideroad. A lady visiting the patient on the other side of the room listened to us and finally shook her head in wonderment.
“You have so much to talk about,” she marveled. “What a busy bunch you are.”
And there’s your answer. Time flies when you’re having fun.