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!

"Hay!" Inquiring Minds Want to Know

 

Inquiring minds want to know: Does Randy really want to be the poster child for my blogging efforts? Admittedly, he ends up being the "face" of Kim's County Line. Once in awhile, he's relieved from his duties by our cute granddaughters or an adorable baby calf. But he definitely is my most consistent model. Once in awhile, my Facebook friends ask me, "Is he really OK with that?"

I've had more than one person say:

• "My husband wouldn't be that patient."
• "Mine wouldn't cooperate like that!"
• "It would be a cold day in July to get my hubby to stand there and take pictures when he has other things to do."

And, yes, Randy is patient ... as long as we're not talking about broken-down equipment, uncooperative cattle or not getting his cell phone to work in the never-never-land we call home.

I think he kind of likes having the farm featured in my blog and on my Facebook page (which, by the way, he reads Facebook on his tablet faithfully). In fact, he often suggests blog topics or photo ideas. For one, he sees it as a way to keep landlords in the loop about what's going on at the farm. Plus, it makes me more attentive to the whys and wherefores of this operation.

One of those things he really wanted a photo of was the long row of big, round hay bales generated from the oats he planted in an old alfalfa field.

As we rounded the corner from taking pictures in a corn field, I saw the long row of bales and remembered his request.

Randy was happy to get 176 bales of hay off the 47-acre field. And I'll tell you something else: It's not easy to get all those bales in one frame.

Sometimes, he doesn't get a choice in whether a photo is taken or not. I doubt he even knows I took this one yesterday morning as it appeared he was getting eaten alive while working on the combine straw chopper.

I paid him his "modeling fees" by serving as his assistant. As I told my family, if I am the assistant for any mechanical project, you know he's desperate. Mechanical ability is not one of my attributes.

But we got it done!

Randy started swathing the second cutting of alfalfa on Monday. Case has had our baling/loading tractor and has been working on it for awhile now, so Randy has been hesitant to put a lot of hay down.

We still have wheat to cut, but it's on ground really impacted by underflow. So we'll give it some more time this week when we have four days of projected 100 degree days. Oh, and did I mention it's county fair week? That's pretty much a guarantee for hot weather. 

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.

Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall

Into each life, some rain must fall.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Oh Henry! I suppose you're right. But it would be nice if it didn't fall on freshly-swathed hay.

Don't get me wrong: Many times, we are thankful for rain. And I know some of our farm friends in other states would gladly take an installment of rain to break their drought conditions. So I truly should not complain.

However, much of our first cutting of hay has had four rain showers on it. Yes, count them: 4!

 

Randy custom bales some hay for a neighbor. He got the neighbor's field done before 0.80" of rain fell during mid-afternoon last Saturday. Earlier in the week, we'd already had between 0.30" and 1 inch of rain on the hay. Then Sunday afternoon, we got another 0.10" shower. Then on Monday, the humid day wasn't conducive to drying it out either.

Before he got going again, Randy gave it the "feel" test (demonstrated in the first photo of this blog post). But a more accurate moisture test is completed with a hay probe. Before Randy got rolling full steam ahead, he completed one round bale. He then stuck the probe in the bale to test the moisture. This one was 14.2. If it were above 18, he'd wait until it dried down some more. 

Yesterday afternoon, he got rolling again after it finally dried out enough. He kicked out 130 bales, and then we got another 0.25" of rain. In one field, he had two more rounds to go before it would have been finished. Oh well! There's nothing that can be done about it. 

People always want to know when harvest will begin. And, if they are talking wheat harvest, we'll probably be looking at next week some time.

But another kind of harvest - alfalfa - is already underway ... complete with stops and starts and false alarms.

Let's hope it's not a foreshadowing of wheat harvest!

On a Roll

We're on a roll. Better late than never.

I'm at the end of my cliches, but we are just at the beginning of the 2015 hay season. Because of the wet May, we are later getting started than usual.

Late last week, Randy & Jake swathed hay at a few fields. (We are still waiting on the new swather, by the way.) We don't put down all the hay at once, since we don't want all the alfalfa to be ready to bale at the same time.

 

Sunday morning, Randy raked two windrows together. Raking helps dry out the alfalfa by letting air get to the bottom of the windrow. It also rakes two windrows together, speeding up baling since it requires fewer trips down the field. Fewer trips also mean less fuel used - always another good thing!

 

On Sunday evening, as the sun was setting, Randy baled the first round bales of 2015, giving him his first opportunity to use the new baler.

We were glad to avoid the rain and storms that others in Kansas got Sunday night. The setting sun bounced light off thunderheads to the east and the north.

A monitor inside the tractor cab lets Randy know when he has enough hay for a bale. Then, he stops the tractor and waits as the baler surrounds the bale with net wrap.

It's as easy as 1 ...

2 ...

3! 

(I thought later I should have shot a video instead of still shots. Next time, I promise!) There will be plenty of other opportunities during the next few days and months.

Just in Time

The first fall of snow is not only an event,

 it is a magical event. 

 You go to bed in one kind of world

and wake up in another quite different. 

If this is not enchantment, 

then where is it to be found?

J.B. Priestley

The baler finally stayed together long enough for Randy to finish baling sudan on Saturday. It was just in time. When we got up Sunday morning, there was 2 inches of snow on the ground.

Randy baled 230 sudan bales from 120 acres of sudan.

 We have another 35 acres of sudan that we are grazing. Some mama cows are dining on stalks right now.

The hay bales provided a foreground for another spectacular sunset sky last evening. The guys soon will get them moved to the end of the field so we can feed them this winter.

This year, we baled a total of 1,350 bales of alfalfa and sudan, though 350 of those were for a neighbor. 

I guess I was lazy yesterday. I didn't get out and about to take many photos. I'm still trying to get acclimated to this cold snap!

Hay! Another Season Begins

Whan the sunne shinth make hay.

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

John Heywood, English proverb, 1546

 
We've already had harvest - sort of. But it's not the "amber waves of grain kind" that gets all the publicity.

The guys did try cutting wheat yesterday afternoon. It tested more than 16 in moisture. Hurry up and wait! It was not an auspicious beginning anyway. Randy found something on the combine that wasn't working correctly, and we're on the list for a Case repairman to visit this morning. Yesterday morning, the guys went to pick up the truck from the repair shop in town, and it died on the way home. But it seems to be working after the follow-up visit. Let's hope it's not an omen of things to come!

We have completed the first cutting on a portion of our alfalfa crop. I'm late posting photos from the process. Randy began cutting alfalfa on May 30, but we're still not done with the first cutting in all our locations. Because of rain delays, we still have about 70 acres still to swath and bale. Miraculously, it wasn't down and getting wet each time it's rained in the last couple of weeks. (I'm not complaining about the rain. The moisture will help produce more hay for the next cutting.)

Randy estimates that what we've cut so far has averaged about 1/2 ton an acre. On a good year, we would average about 1.5 tons an acre, but the first cutting was impacted by the drought.

The aroma of freshly-swathed hay could do well as a home air freshener fragrance, I think.

The purple alfalfa blossoms against a blue sky? It's just another reason to love living and working in Kansas. It doesn't hurt that the purple seems patriotic to this K-State family.

After the alfalfa is swathed, it has to dry down enough to bale. Sometimes, if the hay gets rained on, the guys have to turn it over, using the rake. If the hay is baled wet, it can mold and won't be as valuable for feeding to our own cattle or for selling.

The guys raked two windrows together to make baling go more quickly (photo below shows two windrows raked together).

Then, when it's ready to bale, Randy pulls a baler using a tractor. Randy centers the tractor over the hay, and it goes into the baler.

Once the monitor indicates that there is enough hay for the bale, Randy stops and the baler has to sit and do its work, wrapping the bale in net wrap. Then it dumps out the round bale.

We feed the majority of the alfalfa we raise, though we do sell what's not needed for feeding to our cow-calf herd and the feeder calves that we retain during the winter months.
This close-up shows the net wrap on the hay bales. It helps protect the hay quality.

For at least some of our hay, this farm quote works, too:

 

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, sometimes, they are easier said than done!