More Bales
With all those fat windrows laying in our fields, there was more than enough for us to take a wagon load of bales for ourselves. It took a little creative arranging to fit them in the shed, with our recently purchased bales already stacked to the ceiling, but we found a way to make them fit.
Jody successfully completed baling the last of the windrows, leaving our fields with the clean look of being freshly cut.
Cyndie climbed the mountain of bales in the wagon and heaved them out for me to stack.
We won’t need to go to a gym to get a workout, that’s for sure.
There’s nothing like putting in a full day of work and then following that up with an intense effort of throwing more than a hundred bales in the July heat.
Since we wanted to keep bales from our back pasture, I had some time to kill while Jody finished filling one wagon with bales from the hay-field. I took advantage of the time to turn and rearrange our composting manure piles.
While I was nearing completion of that task, Cyndie called me to meet a neighbor who volunteered to take our miscellaneous metal scrap that was slowly accumulating. That was a wonderful happenstance, allowing me to clean out a pile of ugly metal trash that we’d piled up over the five years we’ve been here.
It was a rewarding three-for-one night of accomplishments that left little time for much else.
Dinner didn’t happen until 8:30 p.m., and bedtime was a little later than usual, but we were buoyed by the satisfying accomplishments we’d achieved.
Once again, we are feeling happy to be done with stacking bales for a while. This time, that joy should last for a much longer span of weeks.
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Ample Windrows
Making the first cut of our fields for hay this late in the summer provides a benefit of windrows looking very robust. When we got home from the lake on Sunday, both our hay-field and the back pasture were cut. Yesterday, Jody raked the cuttings into rather buxom windrows.
The result was a gorgeous scene to behold.
This afternoon he will bale. We are going to store a wagon load in our almost filled hay shed and he will take the rest.
If we could rely on him being able to cut our fields every year, we could probably get away with not buying any hay from our other sources.
I don’t know if he would be as motivated to help us if he wasn’t getting some bales out of the deal, so it’s not a guaranteed plan, but it’s an enticing dream to ponder.
Walking our property last night was an immersion in a quintessential country summer evening. The air was thick with a potpourri of aromas from wild plants and cultivated crops approaching their peak. Songbirds, frogs, and crickets provided a steady humming soundtrack for the hours on both sides of the sunset.
With the air calm, there was little else moving to muddy the sound.
The temperature was warm and perfectly humid, well short of feeling uncomfortable. It was the kind of day to burn into our deepest memories, hoping to make it available again for the depths of the cruelest days that winters regularly dish out.
Locally grown sweet corn is starting to show up and the watermelon is once again flavorful. County fairs are in full swing.
With a seeming emphasis, yet an inviting ease, it smells, tastes, and sounds like we are smack dab in the thickest part of summer.
Might as well throw some more bales of hay.
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Photo Review
There were so many highlights of our weekend at the lake over the last three days that I am simply going to fill today’s post with some of the images depicting different moments from our adventures.
We were out visiting artistic retail shops in quaint Cable, WI, on Friday and decided to make the short drive further on to see the abandoned resort, Telemark Lodge.
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Peeking in the windows, we noticed head-height smudges on the glass that showed we weren’t the first ones to do this exploring.The facility had been through multiple bankruptcies and left abandoned for years. It looked like someone chained the doors and just walked away, leaving everything as it was.
It was intriguing to see the level of incidental decay of portions of the roof and fascia, the hazardous looking green of residual water in the pool, and the weeds growing through every crack in the concrete walkways.
We got out onto the lake, where the view back toward the empty beach looked like a resort with beach chairs prepared for the day ahead. A walk down the driveway provided a chance to glimpse the juvenile bald eagles perching on branches beyond their nest.
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Flight can’t be far off for these two.
On Saturday afternoon, we got out on the lake for a short happy-hour cruise.
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It was a fine weekend for boating. Back on land at dinner time, the Wilkuses provided pork chops for the grilling.
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Feasting is a regular opportunity with Cyndie’s family. Barb and Mike fit right in.
After dinner we gathered with company around the fire to enjoy the sounds of a wedding reception a few properties down the shoreline from us.
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Unfortunately, the sound didn’t travel our direction, and we barely heard a note.
Not to worry. We put on our own music and lingered long around the mesmerizing visual of burning wood.
It was a picture-postcard perfect summer weekend at the lake with friends and family that I’m hoping will linger in my mind for many days, despite returning to the responsibilities of day-job and home chores.
Home life is what makes going to the lake that much more special!
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Final Donation
Some people are uncomfortable focusing on death before that grim reality is unavoidably forced upon them. I don’t have that problem, although I will admit to a passing curiosity over the risk of “thinking” something so fatal into occurring.
The end of life subject has come up for me enough times recently that I have now chosen to take action to put in place a plan for my body when I die. Thanks to my sister, Judy, I learned that donating my body to science provides a no cost option for cremation.
I interpret that as a bonus to the even more valuable service of contributing to the advancement of medicine by donating my body for science after I am no longer living in it.
Making a whole body donation is one of the most compassionate funeral alternatives available. When you donate your body to science, Science Care can eliminate and cover all of the costs. With the rising costs of living and final arrangements, whole body donation can be a real blessing not only for medical researchers but for family members.
http://www.sciencecare.com/free-cremation-benefitting-the-community/
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After a quick internet search for information, I chose to register with Science Care. Having already opted to be an organ donor when getting my driver’s license renewed, it was nice to see that Science Care is prepared to work together with other organizations to fulfill both possibilities.
It all happens in a sequence.
The last step in the registration for donation is to inform my family so that they will be aware of my wishes and know who to contact at the time of my death. What better way than right here in this space. So, Cyndie, kids, and my siblings, take note.
When I say I want to donate my body to science, it’s not just idle talk. I mean it.
And, I have taken the steps to facilitate that process, just in case I don’t live long enough that science will have finally perfected that suspended animation thing where our bodies are kept alive until some future generation has mastered a way to stay healthy forever.
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Eggs Soon?
Lately, we’ve been wondering how close our chickens are getting to their egg laying stage. One of the signs is when the wattle and comb develop and reach full color. Ours are growing at various rates.
Even among the single Buff Orpington breed, there is a range of maturity.
I checked my blog posts from last year to see when the first egg showed up. It was August 8. This year’s batch were all born a week earlier, so if their growth is similar, the beginning of next month could be the start of the daily egg gathering adventures.
I sure hope the predators around here stay focused on wild game for a good long time.
The other day I noticed these twelve have taken an interest in dismantling my woven stick ramp into the coop.
I’ve patched it up a few times, but they always go back to pulling out sticks. If they keep it up, it’s going to be a BIG step to get in to roost at night.
Maybe they know something I don’t. How big a gap would it take to discourage snakes from wandering up to get inside?
Just because they are chickens doesn’t mean they aren’t able to make an occasional intelligent decision, don’t you know!
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Relishing Serendipity
Maybe it was related to our pending departure to the lake with our precious friends, Barb and Mike, that had me feeling particularly giddy, but when additional serendipity iced my cake, I was moved to relish it to the fullest.
Several times this week, we were striving to match schedules with the auto body shop to apply some last touches to conclude, once and for all, the repairs related to my deer incident. It took three more tries than it should have, but yesterday they completed the task and I was on my way to pick it up.
On the drive, I received a call from the hardware store surprising me with news that our trimmer repair was already completed. I would be able to pick it up on my way back home, saving an extra trip.
That eliminated the immediate concern over deciding whether to buy a second trimmer, or not. Another occasion to add to my history of delaying decisions long enough that an answer ends up materializing all on its own.
Now, if all has gone according to plan, this morning we are up at the lake for the weekend again. After the last two visits, when the internet connection was unusually dubious, I have chosen to fall back on my old vacation mode of scheduling a few “Relative Something” posts in advance.
My car is done, the trimmer is repaired, the hay-field is getting cut, and we are off with friends for the weekend.
I am relishing the blessings and last evening’s serendipity to the fullest.
Here’s to practicing the art of soaking up the joys available in the everyday.
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Incremental Headway
Baby steps.
With visual progress toward our goal of getting our hay-field cut underway, we are experiencing a noticeable easing of stress carried in our bodies and on our minds. I wish it were enough to offset the ongoing feelings of dread over the bizarre happenings lately with the leader of our country bashing our allies and being overly friendly with despots.
Our Homeland Security touts the mantra that if we see something, we should say something. Um, we are all seeing it, and plenty of people are saying something. Why can’t anyone stop this ongoing governmental train wreck underway?
I try to compartmentalize, in order to carry on with my immediate world of influence without being entirely distracted by the national despondency, but I’m not fooling many people with my feeble attempts.
Seeing the three measly cut rows of our field being baled was a sweet minor victory for us. It looks so much better than the weedy field it was becoming.
Then we walked back up to the house and I spotted this:
The siding is sagging on our bird house.
I kind of like the look. It gives it added character.
But, in that moment, it felt like the teeter-totter of our experiences had just flipped from hopeful to gloomy in way too short a time.
Really? Even the bird house is falling apart?
I blame it on the sorry state of our government.
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Making Decisions
With everything around here growing at warp speed, now would be a really bad time to lose the services of our Stihl power trimmer. Isn’t there a law of probability about this?
While Cyndie was making headway against the grass jungle taking over the gazebo on Monday, the trimmer became “wobbly.” She discovered the main drive shaft tube had suffered a metal-fatigue fracture.
That’s not good.
I dropped it off for repair in the evening, but their backlog of work is running at two weeks. It’s scary to imagine not being able to trim for that many days.
Cyndie thinks we should buy another one, and I am hard pressed to argue. There have been many times when we both could be trimming at the same time.
Pondering this. Something about it doesn’t feel right. I’m driven to balance the logic of a cost-benefit analysis, a crystal ball vision of what our future is here, and that unsettling gut feeling about the expense. Then I need to deal with the fact there is no right or wrong answer in the end.
You know me and decision-making. It’s not my favorite thing to manage.
One thing that I’m glad that we weren’t relying on me to decide, yesterday we got the details from our neighbor about his plan for the hay-field. It makes total sense to me now.
While he was cutting on Monday night, he was listening to the weather forecast. The outlook for rain all day Thursday was holding strong, so he smartly stopped cutting any more than he thought he could get dried and baled by the end of today.
We received encouraging news from him about our fields. He said the grass is real thick underneath, likely due to the mowing we did all last summer. In addition, he clarified that the tall grass going to seed was not Foxtail, as Cyndie feared (which is not good for our horses’ mouths), but the premium horse hay staple, Timothy.
We still have a long way to go in our transition from suburbanites to Ag-wise country folk.
(Brings to mind my stuttering pause into the phone when I was asked what kind of cows were trampling our property a couple of weeks ago. Um, big ones?)
Amidst the angst of dealing with equipment failures, it is refreshing to learn some good news about the outcome of our efforts to improve the quality of what is growing in our hay-field and pastures.
Despite all the challenges that continue to arise (and decisions thus required), Wintervale continues to evolve in an encouraging way for us.
Hurrah!
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Barely Started
I don’t know why I would expect this year’s weather to be any better for getting our hay-field cut and baled in a timely manner compared to the previous five summers. It’s past the middle of July and we are still waiting on the neighbor who volunteered to tackle the job for us.
All the mowing I did last year to discourage weeds and give the grass a boost looks to be marginalized by the vast number of new weeds reaching maturity out there today.
I had hoped the field would get cut in June while I was on my bike trip, but Cyndie reported rain almost every day I was gone. Then there was the 4th of July holiday week, followed by more days of rain. The window of dry weather this week is very short, but Cyndie spoke with our neighbor and he confirmed our field is still in his plans.
I expect he needs to get his fields cut first. When I got home yesterday, I spotted him cutting a field on the corner.
Finally, last night we heard the tractor in our field. By the time I got out there to witness the scene, he had cut three passes inside the fence and was driving away down the road.
Did something fail on his equipment? Did he just run out of time? We’re hoping to talk with him later this morning to learn his status.
From the looks of the forecast, more rain is expected on Thursday. This doesn’t leave much time for drying, based on my understanding of the process. At least we have a spell of dry Canadian air over us currently. That goes a long way in determining how quickly the cut grass will dry.
Last week’s mid-70° dew point temperatures weren’t doing much toward helping anything to dry out.
Meanwhile, we have already purchased and stored enough hay for the year, so we don’t actually need this as much as we simply want the field cut, and are hoping someone could use the bales.
While walking the three freshly cut rows last night, Delilah was in her glory to investigate the scene. In no time at all, she had sniffed out the body of a decent sized rodent and consumed it faster than either Cyndie or I could react to dissuade her.
That’s really queasy-making, I tell ya.
Here’s hoping our neighbor’s barely getting started cutting last night will change over to completely finished by the end of today.
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