MAINE, USA — Farmers often work at the whim of Mother Nature.
After seemingly endless rain the previous summer, multiple farm industries prepared for unusually high temperatures lasting several days this week.
Steve Sinisi, of Old Crow Ranch in Durham, worked a long day Tuesday—getting up even earlier than usual to move cows into more shaded pastures. Then he quickly tried to bail hay for those cows while it still maintained a little of its moisture.
"It’s drying down faster than we can bail it, because I don’t want dry hay," he explained.
Meanwhile, in Mechanic Falls, Mike Goss at Goss Berry Farm hoped a profitable gamble wouldn't sour.
With other berry farms in the area, Goss uses plastic bedding to hold in heat and ripen strawberries earlier than usual, meaning his fruit is available sooner and then doesn't interfere with the other farms' season.
But a few days of high temperatures meant Goss would need customers to keep showing up in the baking sun very soon, because his strawberries were about to get scorched.
"When you start having those temperatures that are in the 70s overnight, they’ll just ripen overnight," Goss said. "And then if you don’t get the crowds to come out during the day because it’s too hot, then they go by real fast in this heat."
On Monday, the University of Maine Cooperative Extension shared reminders of how to best navigate heat extremes across a wide range of agriculture and animal farming practices. You can find those here.