Finishing Hay Before the Rain...

Baling hay has been a challenge this time around!

We would love to have some nice dry, small square bales, but the weather just isn't cooperating.  All during that long stretch of dry weather that we had, second cutting wasn't ready to be mowed yet.  Once it was ready to be mowed, the clouds rolled in and the farmers have been fighting with the weather all week long.  I don't think anyone in the neighborhood got dry squares this time around.

This morning Jim finished up second cutting with twenty three more round bales.  He was baling a mile away at some rental ground, so he rented an Amish neighbor's bale transporter to make the process more efficient.  (Check out the metal wheels on the transporter, and the tracks it left on the driveway.)

My cousin took the bale transporter to the hay field and loaded up five bales at a time, bringing them back to our house.  This was the last load, with only four.  He unloaded them on the driveway...

...and Jim wrapped them and put them in place along with all the other round bales.  This video is a little long.  I've posted him wrapping bales before, but this one shows it from start to finish...picking up the bale, positioning it, wrapping it and dropping it into place.  Part way through he asks me to get some tape for the one bale that had a little tear in it.  They've got to be air tight!

Normally Jim would take the wrapper to the field...pick up two bales at a time...bring them home and wrap them...and repeat the process.  This way he saved a lot of time in transporting the bales, and could just continually wrap until he was finished.

Here's an "oops"...

The net wrap came loose while transporting.  It wrapped "ok", but we'll probably feed this one first, in case it's not air tight.  We don't want moldy hay!

This batch of bales is labelled E2.  E is for Esbenshade's (the farm where it was baled) and 2 for second cutting...

It's super hot and humid today, and thunderstorms are expected to roll through this afternoon and evening.  While we're disappointed to not have dry hay, at least it's finished and there will be about four weeks until third cutting starts.

When Two Worlds Meet...

I thought this was kind of fun today...watching two worlds meet.

We have wonderful farm neighbors...and most of them are Amish.  We get along with them well, and help each other out when needed.

But how often do you see a team of horses working in an English man's field?

There are several Amish men in the neighborhood who own round balers, and who do custom baling.  This one, who came to finish up our rye grass and alfalfa hay today, used his mules to pull the baler.  Jim operated the wrapper with our tractor.  I thought it was fun, seeing them working in the same field together.

No matter that we do things differently...the end result is the same!

Rye Grass...and More Rye Grass...

On Friday's post, I posted a couple of pictures of the rye grass field...mowed and ready for baling.  Here's what happened next...

They began baling mid afternoon, and went on through milking time.  The landscape soon changed...

As the baler continued to bale, Jim began wrapping bales and bringing them in from the field.  He would wrap one bale in the field, pick up another bale, and bring them both in to where he wanted to store them.  He would then dump the finished bale, and begin wrapping the second one.  Over and over again...

Here's a video of the wrapper at work...

My memory card got full just before the finished bale was dumped into it's final resting place.  Bummer.  But when it was finished, it was rolled to what is the right side of the picture, and dumped towards us into a row...

We ended up with fifty six bales!  They will sit for a few weeks to cure before we open them up and begin feeding them.  Hopefully the cows will be grateful!

Next step for this field?  Planting corn...stay tuned!

Labor Day Weekend Begins...

It's  Labor Day weekend already...just in time for laboring.  :)

The kids started school this week, but have a long four day weekend.  It's a nice way to ease slowly into the new school year.

Yesterday, Jim mowed one field of 5th cutting of hay at some of our rental ground, planning to round bale it and wrap it today.  It made eight large round bales...

We used a different baler this time....one that has knives in it that put cuts in the bale.  When it's time to feed it to the cows, it should fall apart easier.  We'll see if we like it.

This is the last bale coming out of the baler...

Here, Jim just brought the first bale home to add to Ag Bag Row.  It's still on the wrapper at this point, and he's finishing wrapping it as I type.  I hear the bale spinning outside the window...

While the humans labored...(the kids were painting the calf hutches and some newly repaired barn doors) someone else took a snooze in the shade...

What a hard life!

Happy Labor Day Weekend!


Linking to FARMGIRL FRIDAY today...