The Second Cutting

When wheat harvest was in the books, it was time for the second cutting of alfalfa. Actually, it was past time, but Randy says he's too old to cut wheat all day and bale all night like he did back in his early days of farming.

With minimal rain, there was a lot less alfalfa to cut this time around.

 

During the first cutting, we'd gotten approximately 400 bales. This time, we only netted 150 bales. Randy didn't even cut one field: A new field planted last summer was too thin to even attempt a second cutting. 

The quality of the hay was good, Randy says. The tonnage just wasn't there. It didn't get rained on before we got it baled this time. (That is kind of a good news, bad news thing. We could use some rain on our dryland corn and milo.)

We will need some rain if we hope to have a third cutting.

These clouds last week didn't bring any rain, but they sure made a picturesque scene.

A note: We didn't get measurable rain here at home last evening. However, we drove to the fairgrounds in Stafford for supper last night, and it was pouring buckets at the time. Our corn north of Stafford did get an inch or so, according to my "sources" (another farm wife).

As we sat in the car with the rain pouring down, it reminded us of a fair when Brent was supposed to do an evening magic show. The audience turned out to be the extension agents, Randy, Jill and me (or about that many). We were lucky we didn't get electrocuted. Now, with no one in 4-H, we just went back home, since the radar showed the rain could last awhile at Stafford. We probably should have stuck it out!

This wasn't the fair talk, but rather, Brent's first 4-H magic talk. I looked for a photo from that night, but it didn't make the 4-H project book. Looking back, a photo from that evening probably should have made the cut!  It was more memorable and probably taught Brent more than the carefully scripted talks.