Eden Hills

Two Long Days

The last two days have revolved around nothing but hay.  I’ve been cleaning the barn.  I put all the old hay to the front, so it will be used first.  Then I decided to get rid of all the old loose hay just laying on the floor.

I’m still not done with that job.  Thursday, the hay was dry enough to rake.  We have a lot of cut grass that gets raked into windrows.  It is really interesting to see how they do it.  It takes two passes with the rake to make each windrow.

Jeremy started raking up north and in the waterway.

I love the way the second hill looked before being raked.  Brandon even commented on how pretty the hill looked after being mowed.

Then Brandon got home from school, and he raked the buffer strip and the back hills.  The first hill was basically a circle around the trees in the middle.

The picture below shows both hills and the path to get from one to the other.  Brandon, on the tractor, is just starting from the first hill to the second.  At the end of the path is the second crossing that Jeremy put in for me in the spring.  He did have to widen the first crossing, but I’m amazed at how well they’ve stood up with all the rains we’ve had this summer.

When Brandon is finished raking, it looks like a giant maze.

Then it’s time to start baling.  Jeremy did the baling that afternoon.  I helped in the front by moving the bales so he could get around them.  We had to put the bales on the ground instead of a hayrack because it was way too small of a space to pull the rack behind the tractor and bailer.  In the back, we didn’t want to try pulling a full rack of hay over the crossings, so they just fall on the ground.

My son, Caleb, had arrived home from work by the time Jeremy got to the back, and he helped move the bales, so I could do chores and work on removing the old hay again.

There were a few areas that were still kind of wet.  At least they knew where to avoid (the big mud hole were Jeremy sunk with the discbine) so they didn’t get stuck.  There’s a couple of bales that we won’t be able to store.  A few from the waterway has a lot of corn in it, and the stalks hold way too much water to dry adequately.  Once it was bailed, we were done for the day.

I started my morning still cleaning out the barn.  Then I got Jeremy’s truck, and I started loading the bales.  Drive to a bale, jump out and put it in the truck, and them move on to the next bale.  I could easily get twenty-eight bales on the truck.

After I got it all loaded, I went to the barn, and I got to unload it myself.  Well, I did have the help of the goats.  They kept trying to lighten the bales for me.  I also had naughty Rooster Boy in the barn making sure I was aware of my surroundings (pay attention to him or get attacked).

I did four loads myself.  Then Caleb came home, and we did another load.  So far, we’ve brought one hundred thirty bales from the pasture.  Tomorrow, we have the big second hill left to bring up, so I will have another day of doing nothing but hay.  At least I won’t be working by myself since it’s the weekend.  Jeremy and his dad are talking about doing the next hill over (the left hill in the first picture).  Norm’s estimate was that we could get four hundred bales off the one hill.  We’ll see if weather permits.  I am so happy to be getting the barn filled with fodder for the winter.