The Schliep Family

Well we've only been talking about it for a couple years and finally got it done. The whole fam gathered at the farm for some great photos. Don got a couple favorite tractors out and it was a beautiful night for some photos.

Midwest Dairy Shoot #2

Had a really fun time today with the Olsons near Hutchinson, MN on their century farm. Dr. Laura doubles as a family practice physician in nearby Glencoe but milking cows is the other half of her working life. Her husband Loren shares in those duties. Loren was a huge help today and did a great job of getting those black and white girls to pick their heads up for me!! haha. MDA Intern, Sarah Brown was also along today and was also a big help.

A beautiful farm on a beautiful day with some great new friends.

Food Plot Creation 1

Got started with the initial field work on the food plot this weekend. I spent part of the day Friday prepping the 11 acres of CRP/switchgrass to be burned. I went in with a brushhog behind the tractor and mowed down two rows of grass and Phil came behind me with the chisel plow to create a firewall for the burn. The chisel

plowing is also a good start on getting some of the initial ground turned over for planting.

Then on Saturday AM we went over and burned. It was a quite a sight to see the power of fire and how quickly it gets its work done. We started on the downwind corner to create a back fire. This slowly burned into the wind and created a barrier for the upwind fire to burn and die into. Once the upwind fire was started the 11 acres was down in minutes. When the two fires met each other it was quite a powerful updraft. I'm sure they fed off each other in some fashion.

As quickly as it was started the show was over. I also realized that this was the easiest way to shed hunt! Flattened black earth that only minutes prior was 5-6 feet tall! It was amazing that under the torched grass there was already green shoots starting to pop up. Amazing how the spring does this to the earth. This left a nice patch to be disced, dug, rolled, planted and rolled again. Should be some fun.