Hay Season 2011 - Part 2

This is the beginning of the first load of bales....John looks ready to get it done!

This is what John looked like after the 5th load of bales!!! LOL!!! We actually found this mask in the barn and John scared his sister with it! We need humor to get thru the day!

Here you can see the truck and tractor getting ready to start making bales of the grass that has been drying for 3 or 4 days in the wind rows....

When it's a hot day this cab must be wonderful - air conditioning!!!

It's two fields that we picked up you can see the other one past the dip with trees growing in it...

I think it's so cool to watch the bales get formed and tied by the baler....can you imagine how hard it used to be in the old days when people used wagons, horses and a lot of pitchforks?!!!

Below you see Al in the cab, always helping us to learn about the fields and the process of making hay, THANK YOU Al, every year you are there and we really appreciate everything you do. John, in the hat, is my hubby and Alex is his step-nephew and the helper of the day, he worked side by side with John all day and helped us bring in all those bales!! Thank you Alex!!!

John's little sister drove the van and did a damn good job of it, no one got run over!!! She also took all these pictures which is why you don't see her in them! Then of course there is Lindsey (see below picture), she bucked just as many bales as the guys, our daughter is one tough lady!! That head of fuzzy hair to the left is me, I threw them up and she stacked...or we'd switch, what ever it took to get it done! 320 bales...but we had to load them up into the van, then drive over to the barn and unload into the barn...so it was like handling 640 bale....each one twice...ugh! And we've got several fields left to go, if it wasn't raining this whole last week we'd probably be out there still!!

Hay Season 2011 - Part 1

We've struck a deal with the owner of the barn and are going to store a portion of the hay crop in here for the winter.

It was build by some people we know and rebuild about 15 years ago, used to be part of a dairy homestead so it's quite old. The owner's folks homesteaded here and raised their family, he's now in his 80's and rents out the original home to a lady with horses. She doesn't really use the barn so we get to.

Below is the small door (stoop down or you'll hit your forehead!) that leads to the lower level where we stored half the hay. You can see the van we use to collect the bales from the field and deliver to the barn for storage.

Below is the old milking parlor, looks like it has stantions for about 6 cows at a time.

The fencing is all old and weathered, the fields are full of red seed heads of the grass we feed all winter long.