Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Here we are at the height of the haying season. Before I became a farmer's wife the phrase "make hay while the sun shines" was just something that people said. Now I know exactly what it means, first hand. It means that everyone has to work like fiends while the sun in hot and high in the sky to cut, rake, and bale hay. You can only rest if something is broken and you have to wait for parts, it rains for more than 24 hours, or it is all over.
Hear is Matthew baling hay with the little square baler (as opposed to the round baler). The weather man was calling for severe thunderstorms last friday night. We worked like crazy to get that field done and into the shop. The round baler broke so we had to resort to the little square baler. Are we ever thankful that we still have that around.
At one point Matthew pulled up and jumped off and yelled that the emergency broadcast siren had gone off on the radio. The tractor he uses has air conditioning and a radio in the cab. He heard that severe weather was headed our way and that we should get moving faster.

We managed to get all the hay in just in time for the sky to open up and the clouds to let loose their load of rain. What a storm we had that night too. High winds and lots of rain. Jason had to go to the neighbors house and be a hero and help with the horses while her husband was at work. He also had to drive out into the lot and cover the intakes on a tractor that Ian had been working on before the rain came down. I had to drive around looking for the dogs so Mary-Kate could quit fretting about where they were.

Alls well that ends well

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