Haying

First and foremost Happy late Fourth of July. I hope you all had a fantastic time with your families and really took the time to reflect on what the fourth of July is all about. I spent the evening in the hay field picking up little squares of hay with my father-in-law and mother-in-law while my dear Forever tried to get the bale truck going so we didn't have to pick them up. Thankfully, he was successful, but we still picked up almost a trailer full so he wouldn't have to come back and get another load. We had an awesome view of about 5 different fireworks shows that I watched while loading the trailer.

This is the bale truck he was trying to get going, which he did! He's so talented at stuff like that. This truck picks up the bales, stacks them and then you can tip the bed up in the shed and it stacks them in the shed. If everything works right, you don't have to touch a single bale getting it to the shed. 

This was as close to the fireworks as I got and all I thought I was going to get to watch. Until later in the evening when we were loading the hay and we could see displays from our field. 

Such beautiful weather this Sunday morning that I decided to move out to our spacious deck to write the blog this week. It's been a busy and slightly stressful week for us. We've started putting up hay, started and finished cutting wheat and working on the streambank project we're doing. Lots and lots of things going on which means not enough sleep which means not as much patience which means an excellent week for marriage building.

My sister, Kristen, is in the process of writing a blog about wheat farming so I won't go into detail about the wheat harvest and let her do that explaining. The streambank isn't quite done yet so that leaves haying the focus of this blog.

The one picture I got of our wheat harvest. The combine dumping on to the truck with the grain cart in the background.

For those that don't know farmers put up hay in the summer to feed to their livestock in the winter when the snow is on the ground and the livestock can't get to grass. A lot in this area put up brome hay. Another common type is native grass.

The process hay undergoes to get to the final bale starts with mowing the hay. There are several different types of swathers, range in price from really expensive to not so much, they can go different speeds while swathing the hay, etc. Before cutting the hay, farmers look at the forecast to make sure there isn't a good chance of rain in the next day or two. Hay isn't supposed to get rained on once it gets cut. Then they must consider how much they can get raked and baled in the next day so the hay doesn't get too dry before it gets baled. Lots of things are considered before mowing the hay down.

After the hay is mowed down and cures for roughly 24 hours (that depends on weather conditions, humidity level, etc.) most hay gets raked before baling. Most have a rake that puts two of the swather windrows into one windrow for the baler. Of course, that depends on what type of baler they have, how heavy the hay is, etc. Putting the hay from one to two decreases time and inputs for the farmers. It also decreases the amount of hay that gets left. Raking the hay together flips the hay over so it can cure on the other side before it gets baled. Depending on weather conditions, the hay doesn't have to cure on very much after getting flipped.

Once raked together it is time for the baler. The baler takes the hay and forms a bale of hay. Depending on the type of baler, size of equipment to handle bales, storage space, feeding habits, etc. determines what size of bale you make. Some have four foot bales, some have five foot, some make big square, some make little squares. It all depends on the operation. Square bales have to be stored in a shed where they can't get rained on. They don't shed the water off like round bales do. Square bales absorb the water and that turns them moldy, then the livestock won't eat them which means that all the work you did to put them up was all wasted.

After you get them baled, they bales get stacked. If doing square bales, they are hauled immediately to a shed for storage. If doing round bales, they don't have to immediately be hauled. My parents always left them in the field for a week before hauling due to the fact that bales can start fires if they aren't allowed to sit in the field and get the heat out of them before being stacked together. The point is that you want to get them off the field before the grass starts growing again. If the bale is sitting on the grass when it starts growing again, the bale kills out the grass so it doesn't grow.

That's the shortened version of how hay goes from standing grass to baled, stacked hay. Then when winter hits and the livestock don't have any grass left or can't get to any due to snow, farmers then turn around and put the hay out to the cattle. There are all different ways to do that as well and depends on the operation for which method they use. If you have any questions, or I wasn't complete enough I would LOVE to answer your questions. So I apologize for not having any picture of the mower, rake or baler. Apparently, I was too busy doing the job, that I forgot to take pictures. I will try to get some pictures and update the blog so you can see the process, rather than just read about the process.

I've had a lot of people say that they can't comment in the blog. If that's the case, be sure to send me an email or Facebook message. I would love to hear from you!

My recipe this week is nothing exciting. Really it's not a recipe at all, but all about my creativity. Jenny, Moe or anyone else with any sense of creativity can stop reading now because you will think this is about the most pathetic attempt at creative and label me absolutely hopeless. I actually got Matt to grill for me last night and had my parents and Grandma come up for dinner. So in honor of the fourth of July I made a cake and decided to frost it like a flag. About halfway through any of my attempts at decorating anything, I decide I'm bored, not patient enough and most definitely don't have a steady enough hand to do intimate details. So to those of you that can decorate a cake or really do anything creative, I admire you and wish I had your skills. I unfortunately do not, but thankfully for you this isn't a craft blog. So here's my attempt and give me some credit for trying at least. AND the best part is that it tasted GREAT. Thank goodness food coloring and an awful decorator doesn't change the taste of the cake.