From the Fields

The price of hay is up. What we normally would pay is probably $90 to $110 in hay; it will be $180 a ton this year. I bought it early, and the same oat hay, same quality is now up to $260, so that's considerably more than what we normally pay for our hay.

The price of water continues to rise. Our usage has gone up this year. The month of June on our small farm, it cost $900, $1,000 for water on 18 acres. It is really expensive this year. It's expensive because the ground has taken more water.

Our pasture is in decent shape. It's dead pasture, dry land, but we've got pasture. We have irrigated pasture as well, so it's in decent shape that way. It's just our expense to raise the grass is a lot more than it's been in the past.

We did reduce our herd to about half its size, but it was more due to loss of pasture than the drought. We lost a lease. That's just the way things go.

I don't follow the market that closely. When I need to sell, I sell. We sell purebred, and those prices have not been affected a great deal. Naturally, people have cut down (on cattle purchases), so (sales of purebred) will slow down. We can weather that; we're not large scale.

The beef industry in the long run looks bright. Prices are coming up a little bit. If you listen to all the reports, they say it's going to be a brighter future. We'll see.