Despite a relatively dry June, this July has turned out to be a hard one for haying, with the weather guessers being wrong most of the time. I finally decided to cut the larger field and go with whatever weather we got.
Strong winds in a storm got half of our leaning apple tree out by the road… the exposed trunk on the remaining portion looks pretty rotted out in the center, so it’s only a matter of time before we have to plant a new tree there.
A thought crossed my mind that I could use the pallet forks on my loader tractor to lift 10-12 hay bales at a time up to the hay mow door (rather than me lifting/pushing them uphill and getting a mouthful of chaff with each bale). Worked pretty good!
I reseeded nine acres of alfalfa this Spring, using oats as a nurse crop. Since the boys are married and in their own homes now, I drop-bale and pick the bales up later. It’s always scenic with the field dotted with hundreds of small squares.
My Hesston 6400 broke down partway through cutting hay this month, so I dug out my old sickle bar mower and hitched up to the 8N. After making a few adjustments, it did a great job cutting!
We had a lot of beautiful weather moments throughout 2015, along with simply interesting scenes from around the farm.
My “real farmer” friend needed an extra hand baling hay a couple weeks ago, so I volunteered to drive the tractor. It was an absolutely gorgeous day!