The boss is mowing some hay today, gambling that the thunderstorms that might pop up this afternoon will miss us.
I don't blame him a bit. It is getting late in the year; the days are getting shorter, which allows fewer hours of sunshine to dry the crop. The dew is heavy these days too, and often lies until after noon.
As you can see above, Alan is pretty quick at getting bales off though, which is a tremendous help. They got three loads yesterday.
It was a picture perfect hay day. However, at one point a bale got stuck in the deflector and caused some problems.
It just happened that I was trying to get a video of bales coming off the elevator when it bound up, so no harm was done.
I grabbed my shepherd's whistle and managed to get Alan's attention way up behind the barn before any chains were broken or motors burned out.
I do love that sheep dog training whistle, and even though I have no sheepdogs any more, I am never without one.
I did get a few seconds of one bale falling, but it was so dark and dusty that it isn't much. Multiply it by several hundred though.....
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| Climbing up to fix stuff |
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5 comments:
When I was 14years old my mother sent me of to help my Uncle Hermon harvest his hay crop, I had to stack the bales so that they would not fall off the cart, it was hot and dirty work.
Sincerely Stepinit
Lots of admiration for the hard work here. I too love the sound of your video...and so glad you had that sheepdog training whistle.. good ...cold here in MN...fall is here already it seems. Thanks for sharing the joy of hay making..and next time blow the whistle for us to hear it....blessings on your day, Merri
Love your hay barn and the elevator! YAY! For getting the hay dried and baled and stacked!! We saw on the Rural news a cold front is heading your way.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Finally! It must feel good to get some in the barn. Crazy weather year for sure!
stepinit, it is indeed hot and dirty. Very satisfying though. Back when we were feeding the dairy herd it always felt so good to see the mow filling up and knowing they would eat well next winter. Thanks for stopping by.
Merri, beginning to feel like the end of summer here too. Already a lot of the birds are gone! I can hear the elevator from the house and always listen with bated breath for the telltale shudder and bang when something breaks! I hate that!
Linda, we got nailed last night! What was predicted late last week to be a 20% chance of scattered turned out to be serious regional downpours with wind and lightning. Don't think it will hurt the hay much but it sure is wet again!
Nita, he's been picking away at it, but with the constant rain it has been really hard. It rained Saturday, shutting them down, and now we got a lot last night. I think it will be a very short hay year.
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