Posts Tagged ‘hay-field’
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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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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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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Field Open
The weather forecast for our area indicates we are in a stretch of dry, sunny days that could last a week. If we had hay to cut and bale, this would be a good time. Instead, we have a freshly mowed field that, yesterday, we opened to the horses for grazing.
For all the times they indicated a strong interest in getting out on that grass, I had visions of them racing out into the big space, jumping and kicking with glee. Cyndie asked me if I wanted to film the moment, but I seemed to know better.
I murmured that the horses would probably step out of the paddock gate and stand right there to munch.
Lo, and behold, they did pretty much that. I encouraged Hunter to join me in a run out into the wide open space, but he didn’t take the bait.
They stood in what we call the alley way, the space between the paddocks and the arena, and meandered aimlessly while chomping away. I moved a wheelbarrow around the paddock and cleaned up manure while they grazed. Eventually, I spotted Dezirea and Hunter had made their way just beyond the previous border, but they had turned to face in toward me and the other horses, appearing to intentionally turn their backs on the promised land.
You can lead horses to the open field they so badly craved, but they will decide when to take advantage of it.
When Cyndie went out this morning to serve up their tiny portions of nutrition feed, she said there was no manure under the overhang. They stayed out in the field all night long.
They got what they wanted, just on their own time.
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Candle, Burning
Ends, both.
I’m gaining some sense of what life is like for a lot of the farmers around here. Most of them whom we have come to know have non-farming jobs in addition to the crop and livestock work they do.
My day-job has gotten so intense, I’m puttin’ in hours today, even though it’s Friday, a day I don’t usually go in. At the same time, our ranch work is peaking, with the unbelievable spring growth about doubling the size of green things every two days.
The second I got home on Wednesday, I hopped on the borrowed John Deere lawn tractor and struggled till dusk to knock down the too long and too thick grass that hadn’t been cut since the old Craftsman engine popped a gasket two weeks ago.
Yesterday, same routine, different tractor. I walked in the door from work, stripped off the clean clothes and donned the grubs to crank up the brush cutter on the diesel. It was dry enough to cut the hay-field. Not for hay, but for the sake of mowing down weeds before they can mature.
We plan to mow that field short all summer long, hoping to give the grass a better chance at beating out the weeds. It’s a simple method that we have chosen in place of applying chemical weed killers. Just requires a little more patience, and an alternate source of hay bales for a year. We think we have both.
What I don’t have is, enough sleep.
Luckily, I’ve got incredible support from Cyndie, the energizer bunny. She is doubling her efforts to tend to the trimming up and down fence lines, while caring for all the animals, maintaining the labyrinth, buying supplies, Avenging poison ivy, watering and feeding our transplanted maple tree, and keeping me indescribably well fed.
Speaking of caring for our animals, I caught a picture of her the other day, giving Legacy a massage. That was about the same time I spotted the chickens hanging out on the bottom board of the paddock fence.
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That’s all I have time for. There’s work to be done!
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Winter Like
It is looking much more winter like around here this morning. I’d guess we received over twice the amount of snow overnight than had been predicted when I went to bed. It will be a nuisance to clear because the ground isn’t frozen yet. Plowing and shoveling require extra care to avoid digging up more than just snow when clearing pathways.
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Delilah made quick work of capturing a mole that thought it was safe relying on snow cover for concealment. Our dog smelled right through that blanket.
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The horses chose a perch out in the hay-field to experience the overnight accumulation. They looked so inviting that Delilah and I cut through the pasture to go out and stand with them for a bit.
When we headed for the barn to serve up the morning feed, the horses chose not to follow. If Cyndie wasn’t house-bound, I’d ask her to go ask them what was up. I have no idea what their motivation was in staying out of the paddock, where their water supply and shelter are available. 
I put out their pans of feed and the three chestnuts showed a lot of energy that led me to believe they might all head in, but Legacy never gave them the ‘okay’ to proceed. I walked down to the gate opening to the hay-field and invited them in, but to no avail.
Their choice. I left the pans out and cleared snow from the doorways and then headed in for breakfast. The chore list is looking very winter-like for the rest of the day. I’m going to need the fuel.
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Weeds Begone
It took twice as long as I expected to finish cutting down the 4 acres we call our hay-field yesterday, but I was trying to do a very thorough job of removing the primary invader, Queen Anne’s Lace from sight. The biennial crop is the most visible evidence that we aren’t growing high quality grass hay out there yet.
There is some grass there, and it has become obvious to us from the regular mowing we have done around the labyrinth and along the fence lines, that doing so will help the grasses and hurt the weeds.
Right now, we are thinking about just keeping this mowed short for a full year. We may have some additives applied to the soil, and add desireable grass seed over the top, before getting back to baling it again the year after.
The project was almost over before I had even completed the first pass along the fence line. For no apparent reason the shear bolt suddenly gave out and the blades stopped cutting.
We had waited the entire summer to have this field cut, and when it didn’t happen any other way, we decided to finally just chop it down ourselves. This interruption had me wondering if maybe we were making the wrong decision, but I had a replacement bolt and it was an easy fix, so I didn’t let that problem stop me for long.
When it became clear that it was going to take all afternoon to complete the task, Cyndie was kind enough to bring me lunch in the field. It felt just like farming!
When I got to the last little strip to be mowed, I wanted to include Cyndie in the moment of achievement. She was serving the horses their evening feed at the barn, so I whistled to get her attention as I was lining the tractor up for the final cut.
She heard the second of my shrill chirrups, and was looking to ascertain whether I was in need of her assistance while I was backing into position. I was intending to point out that it would be the last pass and I just wanted her to share in the joy of accomplishment, when the blades of the mower started clattering on a rock I hadn’t noticed.
The sound of mower blades hitting obstacles always tends to create a panic response. I stomped on the clutch and lifted the mower. My big moment of victory was dashed by a dose of humble pie. In a comical turn, now she did think something was wrong.
She hollered something to me, but I couldn’t hear her words over the rat-tat-tat of the diesel engine idling. After several fruitless tries, we walked toward each other until I heard she was asking if I had my camera with me so she could capture the moment.
We laughed over the fact I hadn’t hit a single thing all day, but just as I was hoping to get her attention, …clank. I had already mowed over that rock without incident in the other direction. Backing across it on the slope was a different story.
She took the pictures of my final successful pass.
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Did you see that bird she captured in the last shot? It looks as happy as me over having our field freshly cut.
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Spreading Manure
After I finished cutting up the fallen tree, I talked Cyndie into helping me see if we could spread our composted manure on the hay-field by way of our ATV trailer. It occurred to me that I had moved similar amounts with this trailer when previously using manure for fill around our property. The only difference would be spreading it thinly over a wide area, as opposed to dumping it all in one place.
We tried a couple methods of unloading the trailer, but they were a bit cumbersome. I tried pitching forkfuls to and fro. We took turns trying to drive slowly while the other person used a rake to pull manure off the trailer.
It was getting the job done, but it felt like we were working harder than the mediocre results warranted.
On my third trip back to the hay-field with a trailer full, it struck me that I could simply remove the tailgate and drive fast enough to bounce most of the contents out. I figured doing so would spread it thinner than we were achieving by hand. What’d I have to lose?
It still wasn’t very precise distribution, but I was definitely able to lose the entire contents of the trailer, simply by driving wildly around the field. It was less work, so we deemed it an acceptable method.
I was thinking that I should have Cyndie take my picture while I caromed past her with the trailer tilted back and manure spilling out, but she headed in before we had that chance.
As I was taking the picture of the filled trailer, I decided I could stop out in the field after dumping half the load and at least snap a picture of the ATV and tipped trailer, but then completely forgot about the plan while bouncing the Grizzly and trailer over the rough terrain of the field.
There’ll be another chance for that shot. We probably got about half way through the amount that is available to spread yesterday. I would like to get the rest of the composted manure cleared out so that we will have the maximum available space open for the winter season.
We end up with a lot more material when the horses spend nights in the barn during wet or extreme cold nights of winter. Also, the composting slows down a bit, and it is hard to keep turning it when it gets buried with snow. The end result: we store more “product,” and therefore need all the space that we’ve set aside for this purpose.
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Happy Horses
I’m beginning to think that access to our hay-field could be what makes our horses happiest. This past week, Cyndie took down the barriers that kept the horses out of the hay-field. Early in the week we experienced the first bit of frost in a couple of low areas and it had become clear that we weren’t going to be able to enlist George’s assistance in cutting and baling the field, so we gave the horses full access to graze out there.
They didn’t hesitate for a moment and they’ve been out there pretty much non-stop ever since, except for brief stints to the paddock for a drink of water and servings of their feed pellets.
Despite our desire to get a second cut of hay off that field, which didn’t happen either of the first two years we were here, either, there were enough reasons to give up the wait and put the horses on it now, that it was an easy decision to make.
For one, not cutting and baling it would be the least amount of work. I’ve got plenty of other things available to occupy my time, so I’m more than happy with getting out of tossing bales.
Secondly, where would we toss them? There isn’t much in the way of room in the hay shed. That leads to the third reason this was an easy decision: We already have enough hay stacked up to get through the winter.
My primary interest was in cutting the field to discourage weeds and encourage more grass growth. It would be a shame to simply mow it down and not bale it, and getting bales to feed the horses at a later date is a real bonus.
We started to give the horses limited access so they would “mow” it down uniformly, which works great, but to continue moving them would require more temporary fence work than either of us was wanting to deal with right now. Easiest just to open it up in its entirety, and most fun for them, too.
It’s a treat to be able to give them something that makes them so happy.
If they are happy, we’re happy.
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Relative Something 