Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Challenge...

Finally...a good week for making hay!

So far this year, making hay has been challenging! 

We depend so much on the weather, and it has not been cooperative in the least...we've had very few dry stretches long enough to get the hay mowed , dried and baled for the hay mow.  We have more round bales of "balage"  (when the hay is baled and wrapped at high moisture) than ever before, and it's only mid-July! 

Jim is now a little more than halfway finished with 3rd cutting.  This week was just about perfect hay making weather...hot, sunny and breezy, with lower humidity.  This morning he and Eric unloaded a load that was baled last night...

Eric was on the wagon, tossing the bales on the elevator...



 Jim was up in the mow, just under the eaves, taking the bales off the elevator and stacking them...




It's wonderful to see the hay mow getting full again.  Although it's time consuming to get good qualtiy dry hay, there's nothing quite like it for keeping the cows well fed, healthy, and making lots of good, quality milk!

7 comments:

  1. Glad the weather's been cooperating for you! It has been nice for PA in July the last week:@)

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  2. Alica Finally haying weather here too. It is so nice to see your photos.
    I should be ashamed of myself whining on my blog, we are only doing round bales and I know how much work square bales take.
    Don't you just love the smell. Take care my friend Great photos. B

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  3. We did our hay about 2 weeks ago. We sell 90% of ours though - just save a few bales for the horses.

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  4. That looks like great hay! That's a typical challenge in Iowa. It's hard for us to get good hay. I was really lucky this year. Hopefully we'll get another good cutting yet.

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  5. Glad you finally had hay making weather : )

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  6. hello there! glad you got all your haying done. it really has been dry this past week! we finally got rain yesterday.

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  7. Hi Alica your question on my blog. Yes that is the field behind our house, it is nice to sit in my chair and look at Saturday's work. Almost done, 2 fields on ours and 6 fields on the neighbours probably 300 bales or more I think. Talk to you after my trip. B

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