How Cliff is spending his holiday weekend

Cliff did not plan to put up any hay this year, because haying interferes with our motorcycle time.  Haying has to be done on a weekend when it's sunny and dry:  that's perfect motorcycle-riding weather.  We were going to have Adam buy hay for his horses and store it in our barn, and I'd feed it out for him; we'd buy hay for our cow(s).  
Unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, we've had record rainfall totals this year, and the grass has gone wild.  It has to be mowed.  The newly seeded pasture is so rank that even if Cliff cut it with the brush hog, the cut grass would kill out new growth.  
So, on this perfect weekend when we could have taken a road trip, Cliff is haying.  
Friday he mowed.  I didn't get any pictures of that, for some reason.  

Yesterday, he raked.  I used one of the raking pictures for my new header.  That Farmall H he's using was a restoration project one winter; grandson Arick, around ten years old at the time, worked side by side with his grandpa.  Cliff had Arick's name put on it, and when he dies or moves to town, that tractor is Arick's.  Cliff tries to use it occasionally, since it isn't good for any old equipment to sit idle all the time.  (After seeing these pictures, I think I finally removed that fingerprint on the lens my son told me about days ago.)  

Today he's bailing, using the Mahindra tractor that we're taking care of for the brother-in-law who moved to St. Louis.  Cliff is an equal opportunity tractor-user.  He's gotten rid of a lot of his collection, though.  Last weekend he sold the John Deere 520 on Craigslist.  

Cliff bought the old round baler for $500; new ones cost thousands.  We could buy a lifetime supply of hay for less than the price of a new baler.  There is a different kind of cost, though, to using aged farm machinery.  

Every time a bale is done, Cliff has to stop the tractor, climb off, get up on the baler, and help it tie the baler twine around the hay bale:  Every. Single. Time.  Cliff's tried to make it work properly, but it just won't do it by itself the way it's supposed to.  At times like these, I realize it's a good thing we only have a little over forty acres, with only about fifteen of it in grass.    
So, how's YOUR weekend going?  Are you getting any motorcycle riding in?  Never mind, don't tell me.

Iris rested in the shade of a big bale of hay while Cliff toiled.

Bovine family ties

I love you, Son.

I love you too, Mom.

We're changing the way things are done around here, regarding feeding the cows and horses.  

Adam's two horses have put on weight, far too much weight.  This could lead to health issues.  In the past we've gotten by just fine letting the horses eat at will from a big round bale of hay.  For some reason, perhaps their ages, it isn't working any more.  They're getting too much to eat.  

For the past month or so, I've been turning them out twice a day for two hours at a time to eat from their big bale of hay.  I don't think they've either one lost an ounce, and it's getting harder to get them to come back to the lot when the two hours are up.  I give them a tiny taste of sweet feed (about one cup each) to lure them back, but I think they're waking up to the fact that they're going to get locked away from the hay; they're more reluctant to come to me all the time.  

Cows' needs are different.  Ideally, they need all the hay they can get.  Cows don't founder on hay.  

So yesterday Cliff did some re-arranging.  

He put a big bale in the little cow-lot; the cows can enter and leave that pen, but the horses can't.  

He then placed a big bale in front of the barn across the fence from the horses, and we're going to try peeling hay off that a couple of times a day to feed them.  I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how well it will work; it sounds like a messy situation.  

We're trying to decide how to deal with this situation next winter.  Normally Adam's pasture rent goes up when we start feeding hay, and back down when the grass can be grazed.  

We may stop raising the pasture rent in winter and let him buy his own hay and store it in our barn.  He can tell me how much he wants the horses to have, and I'll feed them accordingly.  He'd have control that way.  He's never complained, by the way, about his horses getting fat or the way we've handled them; I just want to prevent problems.  

It's always something when you have animals, isn't it?  Rather like children.  

If you noticed that my weight ticker on the sidebar hasn't changed, it's because my weight hasn't changed.  At least I'm not gaining.
  

It's still no heat wave, but Sadie's been soaking up sunshine for over two hours this morning; I guess she's waiting on me and Cliff to go for our walk.

Today's happenings

Random things around here.

First of all, the cows have a couple of lady visitors; Cliff's brother, Phil, needed to wean those whiteface heifers, and also get them away from his bull for a few months. We have plenty of pasture, so they'll be spending the summer with us.

Cliff is mowing hay even as I type this. There's a 40% chance of rain, but the weather-guessers don't think it will be a lot of rain. When it's first mowed, hay can stand a little rain and still be OK. And yes, we do realize how often the forecasters are wrong.

This past spring I went crazy ordering perennial flowers to plant in front of our house. These coneflowers are a delight.

You just have to love marigolds; these are the ones I started in the house in March, from tiny seeds. Free seeds, I believe, thrown in with one of my flower orders.

These are some sort of miniature zinnias. Over a year ago, I took part in a pay-it-forward thing a blogging buddy was doing, and she sent me a box containing several delightful little gifts. One was a seed tape. It was too late to plant flowers when I received it last year, so I waited till this year. I've really been using the gardening gloves she included in my package, too.

In my frenzy of ordering flowers, I didn't keep track of what was planted where. I didn't even write down what the flowers were. See those tall, spindly plants? Do any of you know what those things are? Right now they're downright ugly, and I've even had the thought that perhaps I have unwittingly been nurturing weeds, thinking they were flowers.

Busy, busy

When Cliff mowed the clover/grass hay, there were chances of rain forecast for almost every day. He decided to go ahead with mowing and hope for the best. No rain came, and he got the hay baled yesterday. The good thing about big bales of hay is that he moves them with the tractor: No tedious loading little square bales onto a wagon, then unloading them in the barn, in 90 degree heat.

Here's just one thing I love about living in the pasture: I can watch the haying process from the comfort of my air conditioning. Once Cliff puts up the bales, I have a clear view of the point where the horses often graze.

The horses aren't interested in hay now, but it'll look good to them this winter. We have more than we need, so we'll be selling some.

More than one way to haul hay

We've had rain come along at frequent, inconvenient intervals lately. Inconvenient if you have hay to harvest, anyhow. Cliff got our alfalfa put up without a hitch, but it's been impossible to get the orchard grass/clover patch done. The orchard grass has already gone to seed; the clover would be OK for hay except it's grown so tall and tangled, the mower really struggles to get through it. In fact, a belt on the mower couldn't stand the strain Saturday; it broke, which stopped the mowing abruptly. Tractor dealers aren't open after noon on Saturday, so there was no replacing the belt right then. Cliff has plenty of things to do these days, so he simply went on to other items on his "to-do list".

The hay needs to stay dry and cure for two or three days. Sunday afternoon the forecasters began calling for lots of rain; Cliff decided that certain portions of the mowed hay could be baled, and started in, with help from a couple of neighbor boys. It's easier to recruit young men to help if there's a four-wheeler involved: I'm guessing that's why they're using that instead of a tractor, but there may be other factors involved. Cliff's asleep, so I can't ask. Click on the pictures to make them larger.

This picture was taken right out my back door. Obviously, Cliff still has dirt work to do in the back yard. But I love that I can see the hayfield from the house.

I actually took this shot from inside. Some hay-wagon, eh?

We got almost two inches of rain overnight, so it's good that Cliff and the boys salvaged some of the hay. Of course, there's still hay to cut, although the quality deteriorates a little every day.

Things I love about living "out behind the barn":
1. It's so QUIET! I barely hear road noises at all here, even motorcycles.
2. I don't have dogs in the yard all the time. I've only seen one dog, the neighborhood retarded boxer, approach the place a couple of times. I can play Frisbee with Sadie without worrying that she'll see a stray dog and run off chasing it.
3. The dust storm that's raised each time a vehicle rounds the curve on our gravel road doesn't make it back here.
4. I can often look out the window and see my horses.
5. I don't have kids cutting through the yard, looking in the windows.
6. The solitude. I used to love that poem with the line, "Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man...".

These days, my attitude is this: "Let me live in a house far from the road; and please stay off my land."

Yeah, I'm a hermit. More so with each passing year.

time to put up hay

Cliff used the old Farmall H to rake hay. He and grandson Arick restored this tractor over ten years ago.

Cliff gave me a ride back to the house and I snapped this over-the-hood picture.

Although I don't drive, and have never had a driver's license, I decided I'd better do it today after watching the grandson put the driver-less pickup in motion and try to load hay on it. Oh yeah.

Cliff had nothing but trouble with our antiquated 14-T baler today.

Arick, picking up one of many piles of hay that didn't bale.

Cliff had so much trouble, we kept catching up with him.

The two guys put the hay in the barn, and that dirty job was done.

More haying pictures HERE.

As always, click on any picture to make it larger.

Where's the hay?

The horses here have free access to mixed clover-and-grass hay, so they aren't hungry. But during this cold snap, Cliff likes to give them something a little extra: half a bale of alfalfa hay every morning.

This is the sight that greets us now, when we head out to take our walk. You'd think they were starving, wouldn't you? (Click on the picture for a better look at their hungry faces.)