50 Years in the Making

Recognize this handsome high schooler? 

Maybe this guy looks a little more familiar. 

They are one in the same. And he celebrated a milestone last week. For 50 years, he's been harvesting crops on this ground along the Stafford/Reno County line. 

When Randy was a junior in high school, his Great Uncle Glenn Bagley gave him the opportunity to put up hay on his ground. Randy got a share of the hay. It was the start of Randy's own farming journey, independent of his dad. 

Undated photo, but probably the mid-'90s. Randy with Uncle Glenn during wheat harvest as we harvested his crop.

Randy has never stopped being grateful for the confidence his Uncle Glenn showed him at such a young age. Later, Glenn and Gladys' daughter, Mary Hughes, inherited the land and was an inquisitive and involved landlord. 

From Glenn & Gladys' 60th wedding anniversary. I'm thankful for the great scrapbooks Marie (Randy's mom) kept.

 

Unfortunately, Mary died suddenly last year from Covid-19. We miss her and wish we could share this milestone anniversary with her, but we know she's cheering us on from heaven. 

Last year, as Randy was baling on that ground, he called me and said, "Next summer, I'd like for you to write a blog when I harvest this field of alfalfa. It will be 50 years since I began working on this hay field."

Back in the day, he used the alfalfa field as an FFA project, so we had some photos and descriptions of the experience (along with some really snazzy photos of Randy modeling clothes from the 1970s, including his letter jacket paired with plaid pants.)

Click on these images to enlarge them and read the text written by Randy for the FFA report.

As a senior, Randy won a crop production award in the South Central area of FFA. He still has the plaque on our office wall.

 On June 4, we began swathing the field. 

The operator has changed a smidge ... but so has the equipment to accomplish the job. 

 

 

We got a rain on it on June 7, so the baling was delayed until June 10.

 

Now, instead of doing small bales like Randy did early in his career, we harvest it into large round bales, which we then use for feeding cattle during the wintertime.

 

We no longer use that shed Randy used for square bale storage and that property has since been sold. But we got permission from the owner to take a few photos there for old times' sake.

We celebrated 40 years of married life together in March. And, now in June, Randy gets to celebrate another big milestone - 50 years of farming. It's a great privilege. We are blessed and thankful.

Hay! Here's an Conundrum for You!

 

It's kind of an oxymoron: We raise alfalfa, so you'd think that going to a hay sale to purchase, rather than sell, is counterintuitive.

However, that's just where we found ourselves a couple of weeks ago.  I went with Randy to buy some small bales at the Central Livestock hay auction.

An old sign from 1945 at Central Livestock

Most Tuesdays throughout the summer, the hay auction takes place outside the South Hutchinson sale barn before the sale ring opens for cattle later in the morning.

We got there early to look over the selection brought to the auction by those who had bales to sell. 

So why would we need to buy hay when we raise hay? In fact, we grow alfalfa and sudan, both of which we bind up in big round bales and feed to our cattle. Randy was bidding on small square bales of hay to use as "bait hay." (That's an oxymoron, too: The "square" bales are actually rectangular. Hmmm - That's what they're called anyway.)

 

The small bales come in handy for my role in calling cattle into the corrals to bring them home from summer pastures or to entice them to change locations during the winter. It's a little tough to toss those 1,500-pound big round bales, don't you think? A 60-pound bale works better. (And let's get real: I'm not tossing the whole bale myself either. I end up pulling chunks from the bale for enticement purposes.)

 

Who knew there'd be such a crowd? There were preschoolers there with their Daddies and plaid-shirted farmers. There were cowboy hats and seed company caps. The variety didn't end with the people. There was brome hay. There was alfalfa. There was millet hay. There were small bales, big square bales and a couple of big round bales.

I may sometimes toss some hay into the air for calling the cattle, but I leave the whole bale tossing to my favorite farmer. He's been doing that since junior high days. Growing alfalfa has always been part of the crop rotation for Randy's family.

 

Back when Randy was a child, they used a sickle mower which laid the hay flat. Then, they would rake the hay. Since they didn't own a baler, a neighbor would bale it into square bales. Then, Randy, his brother and dad would pick up the hay from the field. 

These days, he isn't bucking bales in a whole field. As auction bidder No. 835, he raised his hand and purchased two different piles of alfalfa hay, totaling 34 bales. 

Besides looking for quality hay, he chose a couple of piles closest to the driveway for easier loading. Always thinking, my farmer! I'm always thinking, too. I occupied myself with paying for the hay and then taking photos. I could say I forgot my gloves. But, honestly, Randy didn't ask me to help and I didn't volunteer.

Once we got home, he reversed the process and unloaded the hay in a storage shed. A couple of kittens who'd been hiding out in the few remaining bales of hay we purchased a couple of years ago had to be momentarily relocated to the wheelbarrow.

The kittens were returned to their hay "condominium."

 However, the mother didn't like the human interference and moved them.

Our neighbor borrowed a few bales for a homecoming float. And now we're ready for those cattle-gathering expeditions this fall. 

Fresh Cut Hay Candles: Yes, It Is a Thing

Yankee Candle company has scents like "midsummer's night" or "sun and sand," but I didn't find a "hay field" scent.

However, Grey Horse Candle Co. has entered the market on this summertime fragrance. Here's what they had to say about their Fresh Cut Hay candle:

It's an obsession that only other horse people understand, the fresh aroma of this season's first cutting, baled into a big bundle of happiness. Experience the sensation of a warm breeze blowing through freshly cut hay fields. (Your horse will love it, too!)

Our Fresh Cut Hay fragrance is infused with natural orange essential oil, and captures the essence of summer florals and the fresh aroma of freshly cut grass. And with a hint of orange and sandalwood, it’s a natural scent you’ll love any time of the year!

I wonder if it's a big seller.  (They also have Wash Rack, Give a Horse a Carrot and Sweet Feed, to name a few. Hmmm ... interesting.)

We haven't needed a candle to capture the scent of freshly-cut alfalfa here on the County Line lately.

The purple blossoms add decorative flair to the subtle aroma. The butterflies like them, too, though on a summer evening, their traffic pattern seemed to have more take-offs and landings than a busy airport. It wasn't ideal for capturing their portraits. Ah well!

The guys have been working on our second cutting of alfalfa.

This has not been a good alfalfa hay year. Our first cutting yielded only 200 bales - half of our normal 400-bale yield.

 

Our lack of springtime and summer moisture has stunted the crop's growth. Our second cutting will be even smaller, though a few rain showers have generated enough growth to make a second cutting possible - even if it's thin.

The guys are still in the process of raking and baling the second cutting.

We use the alfalfa to feed our cattle. Usually, we raise more than we can use and sell the rest.

We'll have to see how the rest of the summer goes to see if we'll have any excess hay to sell.

Randy hopes to supplement alfalfa with sudan, pearl millet and silage for feeding our cattle. While last week's rains helped boost those crops, this week's 90+ temperatures are not helping those crops flourish either.

As with most things in farming, we'll have to take a wait-and-see position. The waiting is made a little nicer with scenes like this though. I just wish those clouds had some rain in them.