Tuesday, July 03, 2007, 04:41
Haying. . .
We did it!
We baled our hay over the weekend!
And ended up with more hay than we expected from our five-acre hayfield -- 299 bales all together.
I expected 150 bales. That's what we got last year. And this year we are going into a third year of drought. So I really did not expect that the hayfield would grow as much as it did.
It was not necessarily an easy job of baling, though.
We started out in good time Saturday afternoon, thinking we would finish by supper and would only have two loads to put in the barn.
I might have known better.
To start out, it took us a half an hour to get halfway down the hayfield. The knots on the bales kept slipping, so we had to stop and put the loose hay back through the baler again. And again. And then again. And yet again. Randy tried readjusting the tension, thinking the tension was too tight.
Finally I decided to call my brother because it is, after all, his baler.
Ingman arrived and made a tiny adjustment to the tension -- and the baler never missed a bale after that. When the first load was finally on the wagon, we knew we were going to get more than two loads.
Things were going along quite well for the next load when KA-BANG!
When you're baling hay, you never want to hear KA-BANG! because KA-BANG! means a bolt has sheared.
And sure enough, the shear bolt on the arm on the side of the baler had gone. Fortunately, it did not take Randy long to change it, except that we had to go back to the end of the hayfield for the truck because the shear bolts were in the truck. Of course.
Once the second load was on the wagon, that's when the going got tough, seeing as we had to unload before we could bale more. Our barn isn't the easiest place to unload hay -- throw it off the wagon, pick it up, carry it in the barn, hoist it up to Randy so he can stack it.
It was as we were going along on the third load when another KA-BANG! occurred. This time it was the shear bolt on the flywheel in the front. While Randy attempted to get at the shear bolt, I went back to the end of the hayfield for the box of shear bolts. Finally the second bolt was changed.
And did I mention it was hot Saturday? Not as hot as I've ever seen it while baling hay, but hot enough at 85 degrees. At least the humidity was low.
We finished unloading another load after supper and finished baling the last partial load. By the time we shut down the baler, it was 9 p.m. We decided to leave the last two loads to unload on Sunday. Especially since we didn't know what were going to do with all of it.
Sunday -- after unloading as much as we could on the east side of the barn -- we decided to put down pallets and stack the rest of the hay on the west side of the barn, the side where Kajun goes in an out. We've never put hay on the west side of the barn.
When the hay was finally stacked, we decided we'd better build a fence across the inside of the barn so Kajun can't get close enough to the stack to pull it down. I don't think he would really bother it because it's not pure alfalfa hay, but still, we worked hard enough to bale it, and I didn't want to have to stack it again.
I mean, really.
I handled the bales to stack them on the wagon. I handled the bales to throw them off the wagon. I handled the bales to carry them into the barn so Randy could stack them.
Isn't that enough handling of hay?
I think it is, anyway.
When we finished with the fence Sunday afternoon, it was after 5 p.m. And we had 400 bales of hay in the barn -- our 300 (well, 299 actually) plus a few left from last year plus the 100 bales we bought from Ingman earlier this summer.
One good thing about it is that we ought to have enough hay until next summer. Especially since I'm going to have to feed more hay again this summer because it's not raining so the pasture isn't growing.
It's not the best of hay -- lots of grass mixed in. But it's been put up dry. And it's at least something for the horses to eat. Besides, Little Miss Isabelle could stand to lose a little weight. She has definitely caught up after almost being starved to death when we got her two years ago.
Now, if I could only figure out when I'm going to find the time to start riding Isabelle. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, June 29, 2007, 06:24
Happy Anniversary to Us
Randy and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday.
Well, maybe "celebrated" is too strong a word. Randy cut our five-acre hayfield Thursday evening. And I had to cover an event for the newspaper (EMTs were doing an in-service with lifeguards).
I didn't get home until 9:30 in the evening. But, I did manage to stop at the grocery store on my way home and picked up some junky convenience-type food, which we hardly ever eat. So, we celebrated our wedding anniversary with Banquet fried chicken. Afterwards, we took the dogs for a walk by moonlight.
Thursday was a cool evening. After the stifling heat on Monday, temperatures down in the 50s felt welcome, indeed.
And what could be better than that?
Going for a walk with my husband and my dogs on a cool clear evening with stars beginning to shine and a bright moon in the dark sky truly felt like heaven to me. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph