Re: Rest Day

From: Viktor Haag <vhaag_at_...>
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 18:06:19 -0400

Jeff writes:
> Speaking as a bit of a farmboy (summers spent taking in the
> harvest). It lasts as long as it lasts - the instant the
> grain is dry enough to harvest, you start the reaping. You
> start right away and work like seven madmen to get the crop in
> and out of the field. Threshing can happen a bit later but
> every hour it is out there, you risk losing the crop to rain,
> hail, bugs or fire (lightning does happen).

And at the end of the season you risk losing the crop to rain *before* cutting, too. And if its too dry, you risk losing the crop to fire (and or bugs).

Urk.

> A week is possibly a good time frame. Slaughtering animals
> takes place later in the year - you have time to fatten them
> up on late hay and greens brought by fall rains.

Slaughtering in our kneck of the woods happens in late fall when there's no hope left of grazing. There's no point in slaughtering before grazing seasons done because grazing is essentially "free food" for the livestock. Once grazing's done (late October to mid November here, probably), then all of a sudden your livestock are eating on *your* dime because they have to be fed out of the stores you laid away a few months back, and your steers and ram-lambs become little more than useless wandering around.

At the point, the knives and the salt barrels come out.

-- 
Viktor