Thirteen bales

I took this picture this morning from the back porch.  We didn't plan to have hay growing on this ground, but as I have mentioned before, we were given alfalfa seed instead of clover seed.  God was looking out for us, because this has been a drought year.  Since alfalfa roots can go down more than fifteen feet, the "accident" gave our cows something to eat when everybody else was struggling to find food for their cattle.  Our regular pasture turned brown and dead-looking, but the alfalfa stood up to the torturous, dry, hot weather; that's what our cows grazed.  After we got a couple of decent rains and our regular pasture greened up we got the cows off the alfalfa; it grew like crazy and now we have thirteen bales of hay.    
Cliff doesn't yet know where he's going to put the hay, but he won't sell it because he is afraid the drought will last another year.  He may have to put his old beat-up 1655 Oliver (the tractor at the top of my blog) outside for a while.  It was parked outside all its life until Cliff bought it, so a couple more months outside shouldn't matter.      

 Our old five-hundred-dollar baler makes Cliff work hard.  The twine won't tie itself, so when each bale reaches full size he has to get off the tractor, climb up on the baler, and help it tie a knot.  This looks dangerous to me, and probably is.  Cliff wouldn't tell me whether it is or not.  

 Once the knot is tied, he gets back on the tractor and dumps the bale...  

  and moves on down the row of raked hay.