I haven’t chopped hay in years, but I did yesterday as per my son’s request. He figured (rightly), that an extra person would speed things up at least a little. I used to do almost all the hay chopping, but when the Boss’s mother passed away I took on most of her jobs and really didn’t have time any more. Plus a sixteen-year-old kid can work rings around a middle aged woman when it comes to running machinery. Seems as if they are just born with the knack.
It was kind of fun in a nervous sort of way. Our tractors and impliments are pretty antiquated and I am scared to death of breaking something and putting us even farther behind. The weather has done a good enough job of that already. However, I chopped in second gear, high range and managed to not even break a shear bolt. Not bad for an old lady.
I took the camera up in the field with me, which offered a little enjoyment to lighten up the seriousness of trying to get in first cutting that should have been cut a month and a half ago.
I suppose that what we lost in quality we will probably make up in volume though. It will mean supplimenting with more expensive grain this winter, but what can you do?
Of course after a big day and getting in ten loads, counting what we fed the cows, the floor came out of one forage wagon destroying part of the drag bottom and leaving us with only one working wagon.
Such is farming.
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6 comments:
Chopping? All I know is baling and it's the major reason that I determined at an early age that I did not want to spend my life on the farm. Grabbing bales and putting them first on the wagon, then stacking them in a barn when its over 100 F in the shade, and you know how much shade there is in a hay field, was not my idea of a good time. Five years of university education and I got my summers off work and paid for it by being with 25 to 35 young minds during fall, winter, and spring. (Some days the baling looked pretty good.)
Hello Ontario, thanks for visiting.
We bale too, but we have a "kicker" on the baler, so there is little handling of hay in in the field. We don't stack in the barn any more either, but just dump them in, so there is just the task of unloading them off the wagon onto the elevator, (which is hard enough in itself when the sun is beating down and the flies are biting).
Chopping isn't hard work physically, but it requires really intense concentration for hours at a time. You have to look back at the machine, keep an eye ahead to steer, listen for every little nuance of the machinery and load the wagon nice and even. Easy for my son and husband; hard for me. lol
Love to see the hay fields plowed here - especially like when the bales are left in the field for a day or two - would make such a pretty photo.
I buy mail-order hay from a small farm in Canada that grows mixed grasses especially for rabbits - I pay a premium - but it beats the stemmy timothy that everyone seems to grow locally.
My husband worked bailing hay as a teenager and says it is some of the hardest, dirtiest work.
Hi Laura, thanks for stopping by. Hay making is a tough job, but if nothing breaks down it can be very satisfying.....of course everything always breaks down. lol
If equipment is used - it has to break down. And if equipment isn't used for a while - when you finally do use it - you can expect even more breakdowns. . . our machinery is old & tired - like everything else!
Ain't that the truth! One of the most popular columns I ever wrote was about going for parts....every farm wife's most dreaded job.
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