Filed under: June 2022 | Tags: haying, round bales, Small Farming, Suffolk Horses
June 20, 2022
We are done with our first cutting hay for 2022. There is one small field that remains. We didn’t cut it yet due to an abundance of nesting birds. We will cut it in another couple of weeks. It is just one acre. It will be a small job so I consider our job completed for now.
Our son Jake and I split our teams up. We put each one of his younger horses with each one of mine. This made for two great teams of working partners. Belle and Abby are pulling the tedder, fluffing the hay to cure and dry.
After the tedding was done, Amee and Anna pulled the hay rake, making fluffy windrows to finish drying in the sun.
I followed up the next day with the tractor and baler. We are far from having all of our winter hay stored away yet, but we are off to an exceptional start.
We will haul these bales off the field in the next few days. The horses easily pull 5 at a time on the wagon like in the photo at the top. I look like it was more work for me than them and it is! Climbing up the hay rack with two steel knees, carrying an extra few pounds makes the age show on this teamster!
It was a great few days. The weather held. The temperature was actually cool with a stiff, hay drying wind. The flies were almost non-existent! We have more work to do, but wow, what a great few days this was. The horses all worked great and barely worked up a sweat in the cool air.
This evening we got a brief rain shower. The corn and recently cut hay were all grateful. I am satisfied and well pleased. God is good…all the time!
Filed under: October 2014 | Tags: family work, hay making, peace of mind, round bales, small square bales
Josh and his wife help with the hay
October 9,2014
The season will soon be closing in, with snow all around us. We are taking advantage of these nice October days to wrap things up. We spent much of yesterday making small square bales out of larger round ones. It seems like a lot of work, but the effort is well worth it. Those small square bales come in very handy on a wet, freezing, rainy night. I only do the horse hay this way and a few second cutting bales for the baby calves.
It is peace of mind in summer as I rush around the field making large round bales, as I make hay while the sun shines. It is mostly a one man show here, so making round bales lets me get our hay made all by myself. However, it does make things very nice when we can have extra hands to make the small square bales. We had a good time. It was cool and breezy. The children played all day and even helped some too. It is real nice to be in a hay mow when its cool and comfortable, still the same amount of work,but the coolness makes it a nice job.
Another wonderful thing that happened yesterday, was finding out that I had fixed the baler. I had recently replaced a broken spring. That spring. That $8.00 spring has caused me aggravation for over 3 seasons! I simply couldn’t figure it out. Wow, what a difference! We only missed tieing two bales yesterday and both of them were my fault!
This job continues but we made great progress. I think I will have it all squared away before the weather turns wet again…at least that’s my hope
RicelandMeadows 