Ep. 25 - Intro to Mediterranean Cooking & Hay Production

It's been a couple of weeks,  but Stone County Extension Office is back at it providing educational information through our podcast.  

This episode is an introduction to mediterranean cooking and better hay production.   Anna has been away training to teach Mediterranean Cooking and talks about what she learned.  Tyler talks about hay production and what factors effect hay quality.  Also testing your hay to help you make decisions on feeding to livestock. 

Transcript

It's been a minute, it seems like.

I know, it has.

My beard's grown back.

I'm here again after a few weeks.

Yeah, you've been out. I did record. I got some local farmers, my cousins, to hop on one week and talk about what they're doing.

The infamous cousins. Yeah.

We've gotten into a lot of trouble and mischief and done stuff over the years.

In her youth.

Well, where you been?

Well, my nephews have graduated from different things and I was in Virginia a couple weeks ago, the week that you had Tanner and Dustin recording. And that was fun because when we got to West Virginia, their accent was basically the same as here. It was more of like Tanner's accent. It didn't have as much like Southern smoothness to it, but I didn't expect that. I mean, how often do you drive 14 hours away and the person talks like a Ozark hillbilly, you know what I mean? It was the Appalachian hillbillies. So it was cool and it was really neat to be in Virginia. We were, my favorite after his graduation was we went to Yorktown and that was where the last major battle of the Revolutionary War was fought. And I stood like right where George Washington was and it being the 250th year, which that was in 1781, but still I felt really good. That was cool.

Did you see any ghosts?

No, I could see where it could get a little creepy around there at night if you hung around. Mainly in the wooded part, like you drove through this little wooded area and there was still the ruts from where all the wagons had been through. Maybe not ruts, but like the way that the land was. I could see where that one could be a little odd. We did go into a cemetery. It was a Civil War cemetery.

That could be a new 4-H club, our ghost hunting club.

Yeah, count me out of that. You're on your own.

You don't think that'd be fun to go around and look for ghosts?

No, I'm too. I don't really think. I don't really believe in ghosts, but I'm really easily startled. I would hate to.

That's the fun part. What?

Well, do you remember when we used to go in the church at Roasting Air before they locked it up? Yeah, that was neat.

I think it's fun to, it would be fun to go ghost hunting, me and Lauren.

How y'all been?

We went on a ghost tour in Savannah. That was, it was neat. And we stayed at the Crescent Hotel one time.

I've been in the Crescent, but I refuse to stay in the Crescent.

We like scary movies.

I don't. I do not like to be scared. It is not a joy for me. I'm glad y'all like it. I'm glad somebody does.

Yeah. This is, seems kind of boring.

It's a rainy day, I think. Talking about ghosts.

Talking about ghosts, we should be more. I've never seen a ghost. I don't really believe ghosts exist.

There's a lot of people in Oney that have ghost stories. Like one of them that I've heard through the years is, you know, the why where we've hung out before. They had said that they had seen a colonial dress soldier That's what they've seen just like walk into the woods is what they've told me. And yeah, that's one story that goes around Lawrenceville that I've heard.

Yeah. The one thing that I have had to happen, a couple things, was when we were in Russellville, like I come home and like I was washing my hands and it sounded like somebody knocked on like the bathroom door. And I was like, and I opened it and there's nobody.

That already creeps me out. We were.

And it sounded just like they.

We were at Blanchard this past weekend for the holiday with family who'd come in and swimming at the swimming holes and we were talking about stuff. And I was like, yeah, I know somebody with a ghost story over at Blanchard, but I said, you'll have to get Tyler to tell it to you sometime or listen to our podcast. And you told that story.

Yeah, I forgot. I forget week to week what we talk about. The goal today is I'm talking about hay production because we're right at the start here in Stone County, Arkansas. People are, I would say, starting to cut hay. Some people have already cut some.

Yeah, some we got a little bit cut before the rain had started. But I'm going to talk a little bit about, excuse me, Mediterranean cooking. I was at a training this last week and that was a lot of fun. And then also that's when my birthday was.

Yeah, and y'all celebrated your birthday.

We did. We had a good time. Yeah, it was good.

Looked like y'all had a good time.

Yep, we did. I like to have fun at trainings.

Yeah, hanging out, tell stories.

You get to know people and learn about each other and have fun times. And that's one of the good things in Extension is, getting to know people around our state.

Yeah, but it is, it's a rainy, it's kind of been a rainy week and we've been in a kind of a drought throughout the all.

Not kind of a drought, we were behind.

We are in a, we're, I guess.

I don't think we're out of it yet.

Yeah, in a drought and it's like a D4, was that?

No, I don't know.

At least D3.

I like how we give everything these nice numbers now and names.

Yeah.

Like does this drought have a name?

Well, no.

The storms do.

Yeah, but it's like a, I'm pretty sure it's D, like drought rank one, drought rate 2.

Is it a DU?

I think, yeah, DU, DUI.

If you ever see Whitney, ask her about the biggest tornado. She doesn't realize she's been told a joke.

Yeah. But like for as far as like farmers to get say emergency funds, like if there is a drought, I think it's you have to be in a D at least a D3 for a few weeks. And we've met that. And so FSA, they have some money available for drought recovery and water, I believe.

That's what I've heard.

That's been a big issue is like the- Having to water. Yeah, ponds got low this winter and it didn't rain much this early spring and late winter. And it hadn't rained. It's just this week past last week's really kind of started.

Other than really sporadic, my father-in-law had cleaned out a pond. It's been a while and it barely has anything in it, at least before this rain.

So, yeah, so we're kicking off the episode. We're talking about some updates that we've got going on. And I wanted to hit this. You mentioned that we do need to mention the drought money.

Yes, and then?

I think we were going to mention the Asian longhorn tick again. We've talked about it, I think, a little bit on the episodes before, but it's affecting people in Stoke County now. It's affecting people. And if you're a farmer with livestock, you need to be checking them, checking for ticks, especially around the what would you call that? The creases on a cow? The creases of their legs, they'll be around their ears. The tender bits. Yeah, the tender bits. This Asian longhorn tick I mentioned before in the episode about it, but it's one of them that it doesn't have to mate to reproduce. It can essentially clone itself. And so it's able to reproduce rapidly. And it's a spreader of Tyleria. And that's a disease that they found it here in Arkansas for sure. Several counties have started testing for it. And I've heard of farmers around here possibly having some deaths and it may be related, but it's nothing's been confirmed.

Well, but their cattle came from Missouri. And then that one I think has been confirmed.

It's confirmed Tyleria. So it's around. So farmers be thinking about that this summer with ticks. We want to be sure to kind of keep them, keep our livestock out of wooded areas. Maybe even using a, you know, an insecticide or to kill some of the ticks out in the field. What else do they say? we can use dusts and sprays, but again, think about it. Most of the time, we'll just spray it on their back. Those ticks will cover all over. And so you want to get a good coverage with like a permethrin or something to get those, keep those ticks off of your cattle or livestock. I think just livestock in general can be a problem, but that tileria is mostly an issue in cattle. And what else? What else do we gonna talk about? Well, what else do I?

Didn't they say that like those, they used to have those big things that you would hang between like walkways that they could rub against?

Yeah, that was one of the like a dust bag thing. Like you can use dust bags or like a What are they called? I can't even.

You used to see those often, but you don't see them as much anymore.

I forget what you would call them, but what you would want is something that when they're going through, it is also like rubbing underneath them, rubbing their legs, rubbing their back, you know, and applying insecticide all over. It's going to help prevent those ticks. I've heard they're working on a vaccine. to where you can vaccinate your cattle and it'll cause tick prevention. But there's nothing right now. There's no vaccines for this tiluria. There's...

Do those ear tags that you can get, do those work?

Somewhat, like it'll keep ticks from getting out of their ears, but it, you know...

Around their face and eyes.

Face and eyes. It's. help the tender beds and the underneath and the creases and the folds. And that's where apparently a lot of ticks can hide. We did our Little Red River Beef and Forge Conference. We did the last one over at the Livestock and Forestry Research Station there at Bethesda and Dr. Kelly Lofton and Dr. Kirsten Midkiff were showing us how to draw blood, how to do tail bleeding, and also how to find the jugular vein and pull blood from there, which both of those seemed pretty easy to do. But they were also showing where to kind of inspect for ticks and they'd feel all around and pull their, you know, they're doing tick collection. So if you had, you know, if you find ticks, out there right now and you have a question about them, we can send them over to Dr. Loftus. Yeah, they can bring them in to us and we'll send them off.

So plastic bag, Ziploc thing or?

So what they've given, I've got some tubes for collection if people wanted to stop by here, but what they are is just little tubes with some alcohol in them. So for collecting, if you had a little jar of alcohol, put those ticks in there. Kill them and then we can transfer them. that Asian Longhorn tick hasn't been confirmed here as far as any of recent like graphics or anything that I've seen recently that here in Stone County, but it's like all around us.

So it's suspected.

Yeah.

It sounds like it.

Yeah, it's probably here.

It's kind of like fire ants. Well, no, that's confirmed because you sent one off.

Yeah, fire ants confirmed here, but So people should be checking their livestock, checking for ticks.

That's just kind of scary because we're very prone to ticks in this area. It's hard enough keeping them out of my yard right now.

Yeah.

Much less off of cattle in your pastures and around the wooded areas.

But just quick updates on that. Well.

I feel like we've been. really hard lately.

Yeah. How many kids we got?

We, as of this morning, we have 131 fully enrolled youth. Of the few that have not finished their enrollment, it would be 140. So that's wonderful. That's the most hands down we've had since I've been here. And I've been here almost 7, which granted I came right before COVID.

Yeah.

But It's just really exciting how many kids we've got right now.

Yeah.

It's A lot.

And they're like involved.

Yeah, we've got good quality and we got a lot of young ones and a lot of them who are just trying to get a feel for what 4-H even is. And we try to tell them to just start showing up to different things, kind of see what you like. Then you can go from there and decide what clubs work for you. And it's been awesome. happy to have everybody and I'm glad they're keeping us busy. So we've got a few camps that we've kind of put a little more, like we had them on the calendar, but we've got some thought behind them now and we're gonna have a healthy lifestyle camp June 24th. That one should be fun.

That one started out with my, you know what?

The Murph challenge.

Yeah, we need to get kids in shape a little bit better.

Teach them some form.

Teach them some form because my kids cannot do a push-up.

Yeah, we'll see.

But it's more, we're gonna learn about healthy living. Like you've got some, we found a little curriculum. It should be good.

Yeah, there's a curriculum out of Oregon, I believe. Oregon. It sounds like I'm saying Oregon.

Oregon.

Oregon.

Oregon.

Oregon.

What?

How do you say Oregon?

The state.

Yeah.

Like that?

Yeah, but it almost sounds like Oregon.

Oregon.

Oregon.

It sounds the same.

Yeah.

We just said that like 10 times a row.

Just sometimes you say words and you're like, I don't know how to speak.

That sounds weird. I feel like I can't speak it all today. Like I'm just like.

We've kind of been gaping.

I'm talking about random nothing. Sorry, folks. We'll get this together. Tighten up now.

We're talking about 4-H right now. So we're going to do that curriculum.

But I have nothing to add.

I'm just like, well, okay, it's fine.

I don't want to give away too much because then they're like, oh, they're going to make us do push-ups.

Oh, well, we're going to have bingo and a bunch of different fruits and veggies.

Try fruits and vegetables. We're gonna learn about healthy eating. We're gonna learn about staying active, healthy form, fitness, education about cardiovascular.

Yeah, understanding about heartbeats. And then in July, we're gonna have a maker camp. We kind of put that together. Well, we knew we were gonna do it. And I knew I wanted to teach them how to make soap, but tell them about what this other thing they're gonna do is that I didn't even know was a thing.

I learned about it. It's called Hypertufa. I learned about it with Master Gardeners. They had a little class about it, but essentially you can make flower pots or, decorative stuff by using Portland cement and mixing it with like organic material like peat moss. And then you can form that into like a mortar and put it in like a form, make like a bowl or something or a pot.

I guess we better get some plants for them to plant.

They could just make the form and then take it home because that thing's gonna have to dry.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

And also we're gonna have seed art and you're like, what is that? Well, if you've ever been to Mitchell, South Dakota, they have a whole thing they call the Corn Palace where they take all different kinds of grains and seeds and put it on the side of this building. And it's kind of like a cultural thing. Like it's an art And so we're going to do that too. And part of that is that's one of the fair categories you can enter in. So I'm going to try to look like a mosaic. Yeah, exactly. And hopefully we can enter that in the fair and it should be fun. I think that hypertube is cool.

I think it will be. All right.

Oh yeah, we got our outdoor day too. Yeah, Bull Shoals State Park Outdoor Day. and that's gonna be on June 26th. And so we've kind of been bouncing around because Blanchard Rec area hasn't been open, but it is open again. But we're gonna have the state park staffs really helping us on this. And so they're going to do tree ID and then they have like a wildlife scene. They're going to even teach about kayaking. And I'm still working on the other two rotations. But that should be a fun day at that state park right by the river where the dam opens up. Cool stuff coming.

You know how to kayak?

I've never kayaked or canoed. I was going to this holiday weekend, but it was raining too much. which was kind of fun by me. I was a little nervous, but I can't believe I've lived right by the buffalo and I've never canoed or kayaked once, but.

It's fun. Like we've actually, we did it one year. Like as a 4-H group, like as a summer activity. And we went out one time and the FCS agent at the time, I don't know if she had ever been canoeing or not, but man, I tipped us over big time. We're like going down the river Buffalo and we're like coming to this part and there's like a tree like branch hanging down and like we're coming towards it. And so I use my paddle to kind of like.

Push away from the tree.

Try to push it away from us. that thing was steady. And when I pushed it, rocked the canoe. And I mean, she got to rocking and just we Smooth move. Yeah, we went into the river. Yeah, I think we had gotten dry bags luckily and stuck like our phones and stuff in there. But we had the coolers and stuff's like floating down the river. But That's the last time I've been. We've been a few times.

That's why people like to tell me all this stuff that goes bad when they go. And I'm like, oh, you've really convinced me.

Yeah. The worst, I've floated the White River, like from like Calico down to England.

In a raft.

In a canoe.

In a canoe.

Yeah.

How cold was that? I don't know. Well, you were in the canoe.

We didn't get in the water.

I've heard it's fun on a raft.

My only experience of floating was on the Buffalo. I've done the Spring River when I was a kid, but like the Buffalo is kind of cool and the White River is just like paddling the whole time because it's just like.

It's just kind of slow big moving.

Yeah.

It's pretty low right now or was this weekend.

The floating's fun. That'll be interesting to see.

So last week I was at the Mediterranean diet cooking training and we were going over some things and we got to go over what is Mediterranean lifestyle and then we had to, not had to, we got to cook and that was fun. They broke it into the four different regions and it was my birthday and so before we got too far I wanted to say thank you to Ruth Lowery for giving me these beautiful snapdragons that are kind of in the background of our filming. But I learned something. And so what countries do you consider part of the Mediterranean?

Greece.

Any other?

No.

And see, that's what I thought. When I thought of Mediterranean cooking, I was just thinking Greek style food. Well, apparently the Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, North Africa, and I believe Morocco and some other countries. So they all are influenced by the Mediterranean, obviously, but that style of cooking that is beneficial for your heart health and just overall is from all those areas as well. So when they were doing the training, they broke it into four different regions. And I'm not going to say my region because I didn't really like the flavors for my region. But the group that was the North African group, I absolutely loved the flavors from that area. And then Greece too, and I forgot what the other one was. But it was a lot more varied even within itself of the different flavors. And so I really enjoyed that training. So it's really more, the Mediterranean diet is more of like a lifestyle. So what do you think of like when you think of what do you eat in the Mediterranean diet?

Tomatoes.

That's all you're hyper focused on is the one thing you don't like. Tomatoes weren't too, I mean, they're obviously present, but not to the level that I was expecting. Anything else that you think of?

Olives.

Yeah, olives.

And that's it.

That's it? Okay. Well, so the heavy focus is on fruits and vegetable consumption, legumes, plant-based proteins. A bit of grains, but not like grains that I'm used to eating, like bulgur or couscous. Those were some of them. And so that was interesting. I know, I was like, I don't know what this is.

Yeah, I've heard of that, but I don't know.

Yeah, sounds fancy. Anyway, and then nuts and of course fish, because you're at the Mediterranean Sea. Extra virgin olive oil and seafood. So we were focused, like when we did seafood, we did fish, but there was two chicken dishes that were amazing. that we cooked. And one was more lemon style. And the other one I believe was in the North African group and it had cinnamon in it. And I know that sounds odd. It almost was like sweet, but there was, I don't think a single bit of sugar in a, there was not refined sugar in I think any recipe that we made. And yet we still had the sweet in a few different recipes. So I really liked that. And this was asked for by an individual because doctors have recommended this diet. So this is one of my priorities, this lifestyle pattern. And I'm hoping I have trainings. I just put them on my calendar starting in August.

So you'll be teaching.

Yeah, we'll be teaching, but I wanted to tell a little bit about it.

Yeah, because I got some questions.

You got questions that maybe I've answered.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm still pretty green on this, but so they really put a heavy focus on herbs. And That kind of scared me for my house because my house isn't a lover of herbs.

Like what kind of herbs?

Like I mean.

Like I mean all of them.

Basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary. I think there wasn't, didn't seem to be anything super specific. Olive oil was obviously a pretty specific thing.

Okay.

Extra virgin olive oil.

What's that? What is? I've always.

Okay, let me pull up. I learned that there's a lot more distinctions between olive oil.

You know, extra virgin olive oil, well, like, how's it extra?

It's the least processed grade.

Least processed.

So as you go through the different olive oils and based off of their names, and I don't want to give too much away because this is going to be part of my class. So we got to try all the different, like we got five different olive oils and we got to try them and that was neat. Balsamic vinegar is another one that's used. Lemons used a lot. But so, but yeah, extra virgin olive oil. So that's a change that people could make. with their oils. So they also focus on a lot of walking, I guess, in those areas. that's your main means of travel. But one thing that was interesting is the meal style, the shared meals. So it's like they have in some of the regions, they have smaller amounts and like a lot of it. So like you would see like a table and and a family's taking time to eat or friends are taking time to eat so your body has more time to realize it's full versus you just sitting and eating quickly like it's more of an event almost. And so I liked that. I thought that was neat.

Yeah.

And so what else? Not a lot of cheese. That one surprised me for some reason. I thought there'd be a heavy reliance on cheeses, but it said when they do have cheese, it's like the fermented, so it's more like feta, which I like feta, but that one can be, not everybody's into the feta flavor. What else? Like I said, not a lot of sugar was used, but better cardio metabolic outcomes and lower risk of major chronic disease, evidence proven. So this is not a, we think this is a for sure.

So the Mediterranean diet is.

The Mediterranean lifestyle, depending of course.

Yeah, diet, you think I'm only eating it for a little while?

And that's one thing about it I think would be easier for people is it's not mentioning calorie restriction. It's more of like, let's focus on all of these different foods that are in our diet. And of course, obviously you're going to have to cut out some stuff because if you eat everything you are and then you add on to another thing, you may be too high caloric intake. But I thought it was good. More fiber and I told a funny fiber one bar story to a few agents, but we can't tell that one on here. Don't eat too many fiber one bars.

Causes gas buildup unless you want to impress your friends.

And then it backfired. Literally.

If I think that's the goal is for the backfiring. Oh wait, no.

You got it.

That kind of backfiring.

Yeah, that kind of backfiring.

Oh yeah.

Well, they want more fiber, unsaturated fats, more plant compounds. And you really want to up your protein intake from plants. And we tried this one recipe and it was like chickpea soup. And I was looking at that and I was saying this, This is not going to be good. And it was one of the best things we had there. Could not believe it. And so that's one recipe that whenever I have my classes, I definitely want us to make because I was amazed by that. But just a few quick changes you can make if you're listening and you're thinking, you know, maybe I need to consider this diet and also it's low in salt. So that's where the herbs where we had seasoned some chicken and it just looked so excessive, but there was no salt in it or anything in it and it tasted wonderful. But use extra virgin olive oil, eat more nuts and olives, whole grains.

Certain types of nuts.

They really mention walnuts, but I'm sure almonds are a good option as well. One suggestion too that stuck with me and I was thinking about summer coming up and it's like why don't you replace some of your creamy sides because there's not really much dairy in the Mediterranean style. And I thought with summer coming up and our garden and cucumbers and peas and different beans and legumes and tomatoes for some, And just making those little chopped salads or mixing up those different, we have something called pea dip, but it's not like really a dip, but it's got black-eyed peas in it. So that was one thing they had talked about, you know, how do you make this more culturally appropriate or more southern in a way? And black-eyed peas was mentioned, even catfish as an option too, because people tend to like it in this area. But up the veggies intake.

You can fry it. Could you?

Frying wasn't really a thing that we were doing.

Yeah, you wouldn't, if you're using olive oil.

Well, you can get olive oil that has a different smoke temp, but overall the extra virgin olive oil is not going to be your best cooking oil for that purpose. Like it's going to smoke quickly.

I do like olive, like extra virgin olive oil. Like I like it on bread. I seen like one guy, you know, watching YouTube. late at night. That's how, do you ever get hungry late at night? Not very often. Do you eat a snack?

No, I'm married to a late night snacker.

Sometimes I'll be like, I'm so hungry. So I'll just watch people cook food and eat stuff on YouTube.

There was this seafood market that we'd go to in Pensacola and they would have fresh baguettes and then this oil and Italian herbs and he'd dip in, oh my goodness, so good. I actually have some at my house. But. you don't want to get too heavy on the breads, but if you do go with the bread, go with more of a whole grain, nutty style. But I'm really excited about this class. I liked that I enjoyed the seasonings and they're great. If you're told low salt diet, this is a great option for you. Anything that can help your cardio health is going to obviously help the rest of your body. And there are some components with the mind diet that they mention. And so that's talking about your brain. And there's not one like superfood in the Mediterranean diet. It's just overall adding these different things. And I think it'll be a lot of fun. Who doesn't like to try something new? I mean, I do, not everybody, but just getting a new flavor you've not had is enjoyable to me.

I just need to eat. Probably not Not pizza. Is pizza part of the Mediterranean?

It was not mentioned.

Yeah, there's weeks where it's like, man, I've ate pizza every day.

You're about to not eat enough during the day, but anyway.

Yeah, and then ate pizza.

And then ate pizza while I'm still talking. So today I got my blood drawn. And I didn't realize it had been two years since my last wellness. So I just want to encourage everybody to consider, when was the last time you got your wellness check at your doctor's office?

Yeah.

So think about that, friends.

Think about that, friends. Well, if you're watching and you notice I'm wearing a different shirt because this has taken a couple of days to record.

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Just when you've been gone and then you come back and get all these things you have to do.

Yep. He's too busy.

Wellness checks and stuff.

But we've talked to Asian Longhorn Tick a little bit.

Talked about Mediterranean.

Mediterranean cooking.

Or dietary pattern.

So how I edit all this up should be interesting. Should be interesting. But we're back this episode. I'm going to talk about hay and kind of warm us up. Anna's got a story for us. She's they had a crazy experience, I guess.

Well, last week, my mother-in-law and my daughter were outside and it was during the middle of the day. And a skunk comes up, and my mother-in-law told my daughter to, of course, go in the house, but then she was trying to get the skunk to shoo away, like, shoo, shoo, get on out here, get, and it wouldn't leave. And it kept hanging around the house. Well, then it wandered, it messed up and wandered over into the dog pens, and they tore it up.

What kind of dogs?

Two big German Shorthairs. They're for pheasant hunting. And then one big old goofy lab. and they tore him up and so Wayne wanted to know if it was rabid and they told him that the dogs had to be on 45 day quarantine and they sent the head off, I guess. I think the vet took the head off of the skunk. I'm not totally sure about how that part came to be, but they sent it off and it was positive. So now all the cats are being separated. into individual cages, which is like 8. Eight cats. And then for 45 days, and then the dogs.

Are you helping with this?

Well, I hope not. I need to. I'm kind of wondering, you know, what do I need to do about mine? They weren't exposed necessarily, but probably gonna have to take in my cats or do for rabies and sass probably needs a booster. I think the dogs were all up to date. They just got a booster and then I think he gave the cats all a booster.

Well, that's good. Maybe they don't got it, but yeah.

But you know, you just, I wonder how common it is really. One interesting thing about someone said they didn't like possums worried about rabies, but possums body temperatures too low. to carry rabies.

So that's neat. Possums are little critters.

They really are. They are kind of neat. They also, you know, clean up our roadways for us.

Yeah. I thought I've seen it'd be kind of neat to have a little big old fat pet possum.

Two of my friends in school, they had a possum. Keegan and Lincoln had Percy. And it was just weird because it's like you're not used to a possum coming up to you wanting to be loved on. But he's a big old biggun. And he ate cat food and used a litter box. And they had Percy for a while. He was a good little possum.

Yeah, you do want to, I think, have to be careful about possums around horses, horse feed. I think they're spread a certain disease.

I have heard that, yeah. But otherwise they're like nature's composters. Or I don't know what the right word would mean.

The cleaning up all the caring.

Yeah, the cleanup crew. Cleanup crew.

Yeah, part of that crew cleans up the roadkill. Do you ever watch Beverly Hillbillies, that movie?

Yeah. And the show. Well, the show, yeah, both.

Like they made a, like a movie. in the 90s and I used to love that movie.

I watch it in theater.

I seen clips of it the other day, but where they scoop up the roadkill and just.

I saw it first. Yeah. I have a story about possums and Brandon's family. So I'm not sure if it was in the Lees or the Fletchers and Oney, but then you ate possums. You know, it was tough times. And so they had been hunting and the dog had bayed on a dead mule and they just didn't understand why the dog was baying on that dead mule and they were on their way back to the house and then it occurred to them something's in that mule. So they went back and I don't know if they killed it and ate it immediately or if they like fed it grain a little bit but they went back and got that possum out of that dead mule to eat it.

Fatten him up and feed him some corn.

Or just kind of clean out a system, I guess. I don't know, but.

I mean.

I've heard it tastes like cat. That's what my sister told me. Somebody said that. made me laugh. Tastes like cat. I haven't had either. I wouldn't know.

Yeah.

Possum's not really on my list. I do want a groundhog though. So if anybody kills a groundhog and wants to clean it for me. At least field dressing for me.

Is that part of Mediterranean cooking, possum?

No, but that might be like the Southern adaptation. Raccoon and groundhog.

Yeah, I'd try it, I guess.

I think I don't see any reason to not try groundhog. I'm convinced it can't be bad.

Yeah.

A raccoon. I'd wait till winter.

I don't know. Yeah, it's like something that might eat like meat. You feel like I'd have more chance of having worms or something. But today we're talking making hay.

Not worms.

Not worms. We're kind of, it's been rainy all week. We've been in a drought.

Now we're in flash flood.

Now we're in flash flood.

It's a good change.

It hasn't rained a whole lot all like since last fall. There's a lot of people, a lot of farmers having issues with like ponds.

Having no water, their cattle.

And being Stone County, Arkansas, being in a drought as long as we have, there is actually, I believe there's money available through FSA. You just want to go over to their office or contact them if you're needing some assistance.

With water or hay.

Water or hay. I think they even have some funding dealing with that Asian longhorn tick a little bit. But just reach out to them. Thought we'd mention that. But we're coming into hay season. Some people around, I've drove around the county and seen a few guys have made their first cutting. if you were able to make that first cutting before these rains, you're enjoying the rain a little bit. Some guys, they weren't able to get their first cutting ready yet. And so I thought we'd talk a little bit today about, you know, why we're cutting hay and how maybe to increase the quality of our hay and a reason why. So What's been your, have you helped like rake hay, bale hay before?

So only certain people are allowed to bale hay that I know of in our family group. I have helped minorly rake hay. My husband tried to convince me that I need to drive as fast as possible to rake hay, so that kind of just like scared me. I know that sounds really silly, but I mean. we're new to tedding too. We've never had a tedder until the last couple years, two, three years. And that's nice.

So the process of making hay involves mowing and then letting it dry. And the goal is to get it to dry and wilt as quickly as possible because we want, you know, if it if it's fast, it kind of traps in those nutrients. If it's kind of a slow, you'll have some leaching of nutrients out of the hay. But there's all sorts of factors that go into the quality of hay. Probably the most important factor if you're wanting to increase, say, crude protein and the energy the hay has is cutting it before it gets too mature. And so we kind of follow that line of having enough yield that we've allowed the grass or the forage to grow long enough that it, it's going to produce a good yield, but it's also not too mature that it.

It's just stemmy.

It's stemmy and going to drop in quality. So as grasses or as I keep saying grasses, we, you know, there can be legumes and forages that not so much here in Stone County as far as like alfalfa, but alfalfa is a legume that is a high quality forage. And then we have like clovers, vetches can be good. Those are all legumes that might be in our hay fields. But mostly around here in Stone County, we're like warm season grass and mixed grass and then maybe some cool season. Like there is a lot of fescue around here, which is a cool season perennial and then guys will plant rye grass or cereal grains like cereal rye, wheat, oats, all those can be used to make hay. But for increasing our quality, we want to not be too mature. For most of our grasses, that's right when the seed heads start popping out or in that boot stage. once that seed head starts to form, that's when the quality, as it gets stemmier, it starts dropping real quick. So if you're seeing lots of seed heads out there, likely your grass is too mature and your quality is not going to be as good as it could be because the fiber increases and then your TDN, which is total digestible nutrients and your crude protein starts going down. So what would you think an average hay would be, like crude protein. If I told you, what numbers would be, like how much protein would be in hay to give a guess?

Shoot, I don't know.

So let's say, so a mature cow, we have cow their energy requirement is going to be different at the stage of production they're in. So if they're, it's been about 11 months since they've had a calf, they're pregnant, but they don't have a calf actively on them and they're lactating, their nutrient requirement is going to be fairly low, where maybe like they could consume about 7, something that's like 7% crude protein and maybe 54% TDN, if they're consuming enough of that, would maintain their body condition score. But then they'd start dropping that calf in about two months, two to three months is like their highest requirement when they need the most nutrition. At that point, it could jump up to maybe like 12% crude protein is what they'll need and then maybe like a 60 TDN.

So it's good to separate them out.

So hay around here, average hay, what do you think it would cover? What do you think? Like say around that TDN, do you think it'd be close to?

I think it's below.

Below? Well, the thing is, it can be very, very various. It can be extremely low.

Well, I figure it's probably depending on the field.

Yeah.

As a general rule in Stone County, it's probably lower than someone thinks it is.

So they did a study a few years ago where, not really a study, but like we send off hay samples and kind of what I'm getting to is you You want to know what you got. Like testing hay in it, a routine test costs $20. If you include like all the nutrients and add that on, that's an extra 15. So for $35, you can get kind of a complete what's the nutrient analysis and profile of your hay that's going to allow you to make decisions for, you know, winter feeding. If I've got, you know, say a 7% or an 8% crude protein hay and then it's maybe like a 56 TDN. Well I could feed that to my dry cattle and maintain them and that's all.

Without grain.

Without you know any supplementation. But then if I was feeding that same hay to my lactating I'm gonna have to add some supplementation. So First off, that's why hay testing is important. And then also the ranges that hay could be. So for Bermuda grass hay from samples that people have sent in saying it's Bermuda grass hay, the range on crude protein is somewhere around like, I think 3% to 27%. That's the range.

That's quite a range.

That's quite a range. And then your TDN, I think, has been somewhere around like low 30s to maybe, high 60s. Another big range. So testing our hay to kind of see where we fall in that is gonna be kind of one thing that producers can do that's gonna give them a lot of information about decisions to make on how we're gonna winter feed or how we're gonna feed this hay. But then like this first cutting. Again, I mentioned most guys have a lot of fescue and mixed grasses. So our cool season grasses, by this point in May, we're about to roll into June this next week, they're too mature. So that first cutting is not going to be of the highest quality. But if we can get that first cutting off and then come in, add some fertilizer, because We're taking around, say if we're removing a ton of forage per acre, we're removing somewhere around 50 pounds of nitrogen, 15 pounds of phosphorus, and like 50 to 60 pounds of potassium. We're taking all that away. We want to replace at least what we took away. And That's where soil testing comes in. Do a soil test so okay, if I'm shooting to make 4 ton yield per acre of hay this season, I can do a soil test and then follow that soil test and fertilize according to it. Yeah, it can be expensive with the cost of fertilizer right now. But if you kind of have all that information, you can plug in to where if I spend, say, $1,000 in fertilizer, How much more hay would that get me, say, if I was going to have to spend that $1000 this winter?

Especially, if you're going to, if you're in a drought type scenario or we may not have the best year, you want to make the most out of what you have.

Yeah, make the most out of what you have.

Your field.

Okay, and with that, let's say we're a small producer. don't have a lot of acreages. Should we spend a bunch of money to get hay equipment or could we just maybe buy hay? That's something else people need to think about is, you know, if you're running just a few heads.

You know, my mom has about 120 acres and they never purchased hay equipment, maybe a mower because they could pay someone else or to come do it versus buying on like a $30,000 baler for.

Yeah.

Two cuttings a year, $30,000 bailer.

That's what a brand new, what, how much for mower? 20, depending on, if you get one mower conditioner. Speaking of, so let's go through the process. Mowing. For most guys, what I see a lot of guys do is they use the disc bind mower. We have like sickle bar mowers and there's like the disc bind mowers.

I think we have a disc thing now.

And so those can.

You remember the teeth, the teeth?

Yeah, those are like the sickle bar. I remember, yeah. Like that bar sits down and it.

Yeah, but I remember it was like. I remember the one we used to have was tiny. It'd take forever. Now you can get a big one.

Yeah, but.

Anyway, sorry.

Well, no, but my point for what I'm trying to bring up is thinking about our cutting heights. That's something else that producers need to think about. Yeah, if we set that thing real low, yeah, we may be able to get a little bit more yield per acre because we're cutting lower on the plant. But we have to think about burning that field up. burning the field up, using up. So think about what's out there. Again, if we're cutting our like cereal grains or cool season perennial grasses, all them they store nutrients in the crown of the plant and if we're cutting it like as low as we can we're cutting through that crown where there's that plant uses stores up a lot of energy to regrow so it's going to take longer for that to regrow if we're cutting it real low and we're taking away a lot of that stored energy and it's gonna set back our you know forage essentially if you're cutting too low so Bermuda grass, however, it stores a lot of energy in stolons and they sit pretty low on the ground. We can cut them a little bit lower if we have a Bermuda grass field, but we've done some trials where we've raised the cutting heights on fields and it greens back so much quicker. So for cool season grasses, we're going to be able to get it one cutting here in Stone County and then it's going to kind of go dormant as it warms up throughout the summer. And that's when our warm season grasses come on. Bermuda grass, a lot of guys have crab grass, which is an annual warm season. Johnson grass pops up into a lot of people's fields, which it can be a weed or it can be beneficial. But it's We do have to worry about like Johnson grass with prussic acid if we're grazing it and we also have to worry about nitrates. Now if we're talking cutting hay, prussic acid is not an issue with Johnson grass because it'll dissipate out. But if we're, we still have to worry about nitrates because if we cut that and that grass is high in nitrate, it's still going to be high in nitrate.

Which we test for here.

Yeah, and we can test Johnson grass. I've got a little solution that I can drop an acid on there and it will change its color if nitrates are present, but that's all it tells us. It doesn't tell us the level that they're at. It just tells us, oh, it changed color. Yeah, you've got some nitrates. It may be at a safe level or it may be at a dangerous level, but that's when we'll send it to the lab.

I don't know if this is the right moment for this question. You may address it later. Is with the sudden rain that we've had, is there any any worries of that type of situation or with other things growing that could be harmful for grazing?

So there are a lot of noxious, poisonous weeds, parilla mints going to be popping up right now. And some people, I haven't seen a lot here in Stone County, but it is in the counties surrounding us that poison hemlock. It can be an issue to livestock that they come in and that perilla mint grows mostly in shady areas. And it's more of an issue when it's real droughty in the summer and everything burn up, but then that perilla mint will be green in the shade.

And that's where they're hanging out.

And then that's where they're hanging out and they consume too much of it and die that way. Just weeds in general in our hay fields is gonna maybe where they're not necessarily toxic but they can lower the yield. if we have a lot of weed pressure, what we would want is a lot of pure, high quality, nutritious forage. There's a lot of weeds in that. Yeah, livestock may consume it, but it's going to be less palatable, typically less nutritious, and having a lot of weed pressure out there. that's something we want to deal with in our hay fields is doing proper, using pesticides to control those weeds. We've got the tools available. All that is timing. And to speak to that, there's a lot of grassy type weeds that say if we're trying to grow a Bermuda grass hay field, whether it's more pure Bermuda and say we have like Dallas grass or something popping up in there, we could Whatever we're going to try to spray to control that Dallas grass is also going to kill Bermuda grass because they're both grasses. But in certain situations, like say we go in, make a cutting, we could come in and spray a low dose of some like glyphosate, like 4 to 8 ounces. And it may stunt Bermuda grass a little bit, but it doesn't outright kill it, but then it will get, say, control of maybe if you're wanting to control crabgrass or if you're wanting to maybe knock back some Dallas grass. That is a way we've seen it effective. That's one way we've used control like knot root foxtail, which for horse people, like they're wanting pure like Bermuda grass hay. And the problem with that knot root foxtail is that those little seeds will like get in their gums and will cause ulcers. So they want that out of there. They don't want a whole lot. They don't want any of that in there. And so if again, knot root foxtail is a grass, if we're trying to control that in Bermuda grass, whatever we're spraying is going to hurt Bermuda grass. But there are some tactics we can use to get control of some things. Increasing our soil fertility to, if that's one focus that most hay people need to have is I see a lot of it where our potassium is just depleted in our hay fields and that's where we're getting like sage grass popping up. And then just that sage grass seed. Everybody seen, everybody asked, I used to not have sage grass. If you've ever cut or raked a field that had a bunch of sage grass in it, that seed just goes flying everywhere. So what else can we mention?

Well, you talked about mowing hides.

Mowing hide is something that to consider. Raise that up two to three inches maybe, especially if you're cutting rye grass or something like fescue. we could lower it down on Bermuda grass, but it's not going to green up as quickly. And then timing. Typically for cutting hay for like Bermuda grass, we want to be cutting every 28 days. just that's what we want to shoot for. If we're getting good rain, how it's been these past few years though, seems like it rains a lot in the spring. It hasn't so much this year, but it seems like it's starting to rain and then it'll shut off in July. But if we can go in there and get a good cutting off, get our first cutting off, maybe it's not the best quality, then we come in and fertilize properly, put out maybe 60 pounds of nitrogen, units of nitrogen, 20 pound units of phosphorus, and then 60 pounds, 60 units of potassium. If we put that back and get a good brain on it, we're going to get an increase in yield. And if we cut it at the proper time, we'll get a better, we'll get an increase in quality. And then I mention test your hay so we know where it's, you know, what the quality is. And then we can use that to make decisions. Okay, I need to supplement because my TDN, this hay is not good enough quality to meet their nutritional needs. or maybe it is or and so I could use say I can feed my worst quality hay over here to these cattle and I can feed the better nutritious hay to these cattle. Speaking of that, we also want to kind of feed into groups, you know, if they're different nutritional requirements, easier feeding, break them into different groups. Does that make sense? But that's.

I noticed, the years that they put more focus into separating out the lactating cows, boosting their nutrition, they bred back much better than previous.

That's our whole goal with making this forage is to help improve the performance of these cattle. And doing these really to me is, you know, easier said than done. Yeah, weather has a big effect on our timing. But if we're shooting for, like I want to cut at proper maturity to get the best quality, I think if you're chasing those goals, looking at actually improving these practices, you're going to see improvements to your herd.

And I hate it seeing a poorly cow. I know some are prone to it, but the best you can do to keep them from getting in that situation would be better.

There's more, I guess we could come back. This is kind of the intro. Maybe that's what I'll talk about for the next three weeks is our next few weeks is talking about hay because we'll get into also, let's say, you know, we've cut hay and it got rained on. what's gonna happen then? There is some loss of nutrients and then say once we bale it up, what moisture do we cut this at? A good tip is to shoot for around 20% moisture because if it's say like a 30% moisture content, it's wetter, it's gonna go through a spontaneous heating. I've seen that. Which could cause a fire. but it's going to raise that internal temperature in there and that's going to kind of cook and leach out some nutrients. So how we're doing all these processes, are we, how fast we're traveling, we could be knocking off leaves like if we've cut a bunch of legumes and they've, legumes and grasses dry at different rates. and we get our legumes too dry and we come through and rake that, we could knock off and shatter a bunch of leaves. Well, there went all our nutrient of value. So there's also there's so much stuff to think about when we're making hay that even after we've cut it can affect that quality. But we'll get into that a little bit more. You got anything else?

I don't think so.

Well, thanks for listening. I'll get this one out to y'all. Maybe this will be interesting the next few weeks while y'all are driving around listening, making hay. We'll be talking about making hay.

That's a great time.

All right.

Have a good one.

Yep, we'll shut her down. Have a good one.