Rain and Grinding

The promise of rain came true as of midnight.  We got between half an inch and an inch.  It was very exciting!  Dad feels much better about the corn now that it's sitting in moisture.  Germination shouldn't be too much of a worry, so long as we start to warm up.  Today was once again another February day in April.  The highs only reached into the lower '50s and there was an east wind from 10-20 mph consistently throughout the day.  This morning we fiddled with our Dixon lawnmower because one of the front tires wasn't holding air.  Luckily, the dealer down the road carried the inner-tube we needed, so all that is taken care of.  We also had to call the vet out for one of the steers in the west yard.  He's about, oh, 700-800 pounds and had a rectal prolapse.  The doc numbed the area and stitched around the anus.  It's sort of hard to explain the procedure, but basically, he wants to encourage scar tissue to form because there really isn't anything you can do to "fix" prolapsing.  For those of you who don't know, when anything prolapses, it means the insides are coming out.  This happens more commonly after a birth, when the entire uterus starts pushing out and the vet has to come and try to get everything back in where it's supposed to, stitch it up so there is enough scar tissue built up to prevent the prolapsing from happening again, and that's all they can do.  We are to keep the stitches in for ten days, then dad will remove them.  I'm sure I'll be around to see that done.  It won't be a pretty site because the area will be really swollen and the steer will be less than cooperative despite being in the head chute, but this needed to be done.  The afternoon was spent grinding corn and hay.  Dad helped me with the corn this time around because we had to install the auger in the silo differently than it was and it wasn't being cooperative.  We unloaded two loads in the loft of the feed house and left one load in the grinder for feeding the cows at the home place.  We ground hay with the tub grinder.  So basically it's this huge iron tub with hammers at the bottom that smash down and grind the big, round bales.  It's powered by the tractor PTO and it takes, I think, 150 RPMs to run.  There is a tire that has to have 50 psi that turns the iron on the bottom of the tub and makes the tub move.  It was pretty neat to watch, though I kept my distance from the tractor because it was growling so much.  We ought to have enough hay ground for the rest of the week, though.  We got through eight bales, I think.  Despite there being unexpected hiccups throughout this dreary day, it was relatively productive.