We have enjoyed a streak of great weather here at Dogpound North and you know that old saying “make hay while the sun shines” describes what has been going on here. Until yesterday I was just an interested bystander, but it looked like Bob could use a little help so I climbed in and he gave me the grand tour of his engine and baler. The tractor was pretty high tech compared to my old John Deere 4020, but the baler was basically a newer model of the balers we used on my Mom and Uncle’s farm 40 years ago. Pretty good design I guess to stand up all that time.
Thursday Bob had the whole family out working on our place, two balers working till the sun went down and the bale wagon was working in the wee hours picking up all the bales that they had made that day.
These bale wagons have made a lot of the hard work that I remember haying and baling straw a thing of the past. I had a question about the little bales from Rod over at Retired Rod. The answer like most is a combination of things, in our country we grow a lot of timothy hay, and try to export it to Japan. The Hay Plants like the small square bales as they compress them so that they are much smaller, and heavier, for shipping overseas. Now recently there are getting to be some big square balers around and they are moving towards them as the trucking is easier, but those balers are pretty expensive and this is what Bob has so that is what we use. And for our own use here at Dogpound North we hand feed our horses and take bales to the mountains all summer so we don’t need any 1500-2000 pound monsters for that.
The feather at the top was left out in the hay by one of our resident hawks. They love watching the haying and picking off any unsuspecting mice that might be exposed by the recently cut hay.
Hi, Very nice blog done by real Albertans. Beautiful pics too.
ReplyDeleteGreeting to Alberta from the other side of Canada!
thanks for the 'haying lesson'!!..
ReplyDeleteWish those hawks would visit me and pick up my influx of mice! :)
ReplyDeleteGREAT photos... I bet that hay smelt really good!!!
ReplyDeleteHave fun
Donna
I think you need to send some of those hawks down to Judy, she seems to have way too many ice visitors.
ReplyDeleteNow that the haying is done, you can really relax. You might even start acting like you're retired. :c)
You bring back memories..how well I remember haying during the summer months at my uncles farm in Cape Breton...but we had a horse and truck wagon...and loaded with pitch forks...hot days for sure...never had the sense to put on long pants - it was just too hot...and I'd have hay rashed legs forever....
ReplyDeletegood job!!
Of course I just had to tease about the little bitty hay bales, but I knew from last year that you send them off to Japan. Still haying is a whole lot of work even with the more modern machines. Glad you got yours in without the rain showers.
ReplyDeleteDown here in Kansas most of our barns are long since fallen in, so we have no choice but to use the big round bales.....