More nice weather means more hay to put away
Our forage supplier, Dennis Demar, mowed some more fields Thursday, and despite a brief spell of rain Friday evening, the hay was ready to bale Saturday afternoon. We were happy with the timing because the boys had gone back to school this week and we would have been short on help if the hay had been ready during the week.
Dad thought he might have the first load of hay here around 4 or 4:30, so we decided to hustle around and have the cows milked before we started unloading hay. We were milking by 3 o'clock, and we had the last 3 cows waiting to come into the parlor when Dad pulled in with the first load around 4:30. While Mom and Karen washed up from milking and took care of the young stock, the boys, my brother, Steve, his wife, Jill, and I started unloading the first wagonload of hay. Once Karen was done in the barn she came up to the haymow, too. Dad kept the wagons coming pretty fast, but he never waited too long for us to empty the load he had just brought us. By 7:30, we had put in another 850 bales, bringing the total to around 1550 bales. What a relief to finally have our supply of square bales safely in the barn. Dennis might have one more load for us tomorrow. We'll have to wait and see.
The decision to milk the cows first turned out to be a great idea. We would have been in the barn until at least 9:30 if we had waited to milk the cows after unloading the hay. With good family teamwork we had all the work done at a reasonable hour.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
Posted by Blogger Chris at September 13, 2004 09:00 AM
The hot spell in early June saw me baling hay on 14 June, which is a week earlier than I have previously started. However this showery spell has at least meant that I could watch England play some matches in Euro 2004. Unfortunately Portugal’s win has spoilt my viewing! After mowing the cut grass needs to dry out and this is speeded up by means of a hay bob attached to the back of the tractor. This piece of equipment spreads and turns over the grass that, depending on the weather, may need moving several times.
do organic cows, or yours in particular get more grass than other cows? The reason I'm asking is that my doctor recommended taking a supplement called CLA. I looked it up and found that milk, cheese and butter are a good source and that grass fed cows have more CLA than grain fed. what do you know about this?
After reading the blog on a daily basis for some time I felt I needed to let you know how much I appreciate farmers and what they do for me while I am able to sit in my office in front of a computer for 8 hours and then go play. It takes a special person to love farming even with the things like bad weather, cold, drought, market prices etc. I grew up in the country but we didn't farm, my dad was a coal miner. Thanks for taking care of us. G
Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont.