It's Hip To Be Square

It's hip to be square.

At least, that's what Huey Lewis and the News said via that tap-your-foot song.

Don't tell me that I'm crazy.
Don't tell me I'm nowhere.
Take it from me
It's hip to be square.

I guess it's hip to be square for hay bales, too. "It's hip to be rectangle" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, though it's probably more accurate if you ask your average kindergartener about the stacks of hay at Central Livestock.

I went with Randy to buy some small bales at their hay auction a couple of weeks ago. Most Tuesdays this summer, the hay auction takes place outside the South Hutchinson sale barn before the sale ring opens for cattle later in the morning.  (FYI: There's no hay auction September 5 because of Labor Day.)

I've been to farm auctions.
I've been to cattle auctions.
But I'd never been to a hay auction.

Who knew there'd be such a crowd? There were guys there buying alfalfa for horses. There was a lady who needed a hay buffet for her llamas. 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 a pile of teft hay. There were small bales, big square bales and a couple of big round bales.

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.

 

We got there early to look over the selection brought to the auction by those who had bales to sell. Randy was bidding on small square bales of hay to use as "bait hay." 

 

Those 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.

This is the trailer of hay Randy ended up buying.

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.

So, after the auction was over, it was just like old times for Randy to have to move the bales. Look at those muscles!

This time, he transferred them into a cattle trailer for the trip home, rather than collecting them on a hay wagon.

I was no help at all. I stood around and took photos. (I did offer to help.)

After Randy's junior year at K-State, he purchased his first swather. Then, during his senior year, he and his dad purchased their first round baler. They haven't produced small bales since that time, so periodically, Randy purchases some through an auction or from another producer who has extra.

He was looking for alfalfa bales which were heavy and had lots of leaves. He also wanted bales that had been packed tightly. After he bought the trailer of hay, the auction clerk marked the stacks with 788, Randy's auction number.

 

Then it was time to settle up at the office. We paid $6.50 per bale for 30 bales of hay. 

I noticed that hay wasn't on this vintage 1945 that still hangs at the sale barn. Maybe it fell in the ubiquitous "Miscellaneous articles."

And bonus: We ate breakfast at the Stockyard Cafe. I loved their sign. The day we were there, hours were "6 AM - till the cows go home." And on Sunday, there's no breakfast at the sale barn, since they "took the cows to church."

We'll hope those small bales of hay will help us take our cows home, too. 

Aggie at the Auction

Since Aggie enjoyed himself so much at the cattle auction, we decided he should go along when a neighbor's family had a farm sale this week. Our neighbor died last year, and his girls have rented out the farm ground to another neighbor. So, they don't have a need for the equipment he used on their farm.

When we got to the auction, Aggie and Randy got an auction number, 52. That is the number Randy used to make his bids.

The auctioneers usually start with the "small stuff," which is typically put on trailers. Randy wasn't interested in any of those items. But a farm sale is also a good time to visit with your neighbors, so we did some of that while the auctioneers sold tools, fencing gear and other smaller items. Aggie checked it out, but he wasn't interested either.

The auctioneer rides in the bed of a pickup truck. The bidders gather around the trailers or the equipment that's being sold. 

The auctioneer uses a microphone and does his auctioneering chant to try and get people to pay the most money possible for each item.

While they were still selling the items on the trailers, Aggie and I went with Randy to check out two pieces of equipment.

Randy wanted to bid on this chisel. If Aggie looked closely, he could see the points, the part that goes into the soil. A farmer would hook it up to a tractor and pull the chisel to break up and loosen the soil. The points also disrupt the roots of weeds in the field and kill the weeds.

 

Randy also wanted to bid on a fallow master, which is used as a conservation tool. It doesn't dig as deeply as a chisel, and it leaves some residue on top of the soil which helps prevent wind erosion and conserves moisture in the field. Still, the sweeps will cut off the weeds. 

Below, Aggie checked out the pluckers, the round teeth-like wheels that pull up the weeds and also help level the ground.

Randy quit bidding on the chisel because it went for more money than he wanted to spend. However, he got the fallow master for $22,000. That sounded like a lot of money to Aggie. It did to me, too. But a new fallow master would cost around $50,000. We purchase a few things new here on our farm, but much of the equipment we use on our farm is used, mainly because it's so much less money.

After the sale, Randy went to the auctioneer's portable office in a trailer. He told the auction clerk that his sale number was No. 52. She knew how much he had bid for the fallow master based on his auction number. So, he wrote the check and we were free to take it home.

Aggie and I didn't bid on anything, but we enjoyed watching and visiting!

***

In case you've missed the introduction to Flat Aggie

Our buddy, Flat Aggie, is from Miss Holbrook's fourth grade classroom at Walden Academy in Willows, California. Flat Aggie is a project of my southeast Kansas blog friend, Nicole, and her Tales of a Kansas Farm Mom blog. Flat Aggie goes to farms all across the country to learn about agriculture. Aggie then reports back to the class with a letter (or blog posts) from the farm. Randy and I have been taking Aggie with us when we check cattle and do other things on the farm. We have enjoyed hosting him and helping him learn about life on a South Central Kansas farm.