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.

Making Hay

There is no reason to fear the wind

if your stack of hay is well tied. 

Irish Proverb

Proverbs are all well and good. But, you might need to fear the wind before you get the hay in the bale.

It's been breezy (an understatement) as Randy has swathed and baled much of the first cutting of 2020 alfalfa. Get enough gusty wind, and it scatters the windrows. The hot and windy weather has also made it challenging to get the moisture in the bales just right  - not too dry and not too wet, as Goldilocks might say. 

But another proverb has come to pass for this first cutting of hay, at least here on The County Line.

Whan the sunne shinth make hay.

Whiche is to say.
Take time whan time cometh,
lest time steale away.

John Heywood, English proverb, 1546

In other words, "Make hay while the sun shines."

Believe me: Just like farmers of the 1500s, today's producers want to make hay while the sun shines. Some area farmers had swathed hay a couple of weeks ago. However, after looking at the weather forecast for that timeframe, Randy opted to leave it standing, so it didn't get rained upon.

Our alfalfa was behind because of an infestation of alfalfa weevils earlier this spring. After the co-op sprayed it, it took awhile for the alfalfa to rebound.

Because of the insects, our first cutting provided less tonnage than normal, though the quality was good, my resident hay expert says.

But now all 128 of our acres - plus 30 custom swathed and baled for a neighbor - is in big round bales.

The bales were moved to the edge of the road, so we'll be ready to feed them to our cows next winter.

File photo from The County Line

For a comprehensive look at swathing and baling hay from start to finish (with lots more photos), visit this previous link.

The hot, dry and windy weather is also propelling us toward wheat harvest. Ready or not, here it comes! My resident farmer anticipates a start early next week. We'll see if that's accurate or his optimism talking. Stay tuned!

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.

A "Gem" of a Crop

We have been growing pearls on 21 acres this summer.
Oh wait! We've been growing pearl millet. I guess I won't call the jeweler after all.

But we will be calling the cows to dine on this supplemental feed this coming winter. Pearl millet is a fast-growing feed. It does well on sandier soils.

Last week, Randy swathed the pearl millet and left it to dry down. Because it makes thicker windrows, it takes longer for it to be ready to bale.

Even though I thought the cat-tail looking heads were pretty, Randy says there isn't a lot of nutrient value there. It will mostly be used for roughage for our mama cows.

Pearl millet is low in prussic acid, which can cause poisoning in feed.

One other advantage of the pearl millet is that it will grow back. So we'll be able to feed the baled millet. And we'll also be able to put up electric fence around the field and use it to graze cattle this fall.

 We also left some standing. It, too, will be grazed this fall.

So, it really is a "gem" of a crop.

***

Note: I may be fired as reporter for this particular crop endeavor. Randy baled it on Friday, but I didn't think about going to take a photo. Then Cierra picked it up that afternoon. I missed that photo op, too.

It's now at the end of the field, ready to be fed to the cattle this winter.

So all's well that "ends" well. (Farm pun alert!)