Hay Season

There has finally been a break in the continuous rain that we have had all summer long. Our hay fields have been ready to cut for several weeks but with all the rain showers it has not been possible to even attempt it. The weather man predicted a week straight of sunshine so Russell took the chance and cut the hay for us earlier this week. Now this hay business has been only a dream for years and years ever since we brought home our first little free jersey bull calf and realized we really enjoyed this farming life. All those years we have had to sink any profit we thought we could make right back into buying hay and grain to sustain the animals until the next butcher date as we have not had enough acreage until we bought the farm so we could raise our own crops. Now 4 years later we are finally getting our first real crop of hay. The first 2 growing seasons my big brother David planted corn to break up the fields that had not been planted or worked in 20 years. Last year we invested the money into planting two fields into alfalfa only to have a big wind storm come up the next day and blow away nearly all of our seed. We got a whole whopping 35 square bales last summer and pastured it off for the rest of the season, hoping and praying that maybe, just maybe, some alfalfa would come back. A bit of the alfalfa came back this spring but not much. We let it grow to see what would come of it and got 4 large round bales off of first crop. The fields still weren't very thick or lush but with all the rain we have had what was there grew fairly well. Being we missed the fall planting date before second crop could be cut we decided to just let the field grow so we could at least take some more hay off of it and will hope to be able to invest in planting alfalfa next spring again. We were able to get 150+ square bales off of these two fields~ yippee! Cole worked so hard along side Rob to help load all those bales on the wagon as Russell baled. They even let Micah, Grace and I ride along. So fun! I am a true farm girl at heart. Once all that hay is baled it's time to get it all into the haymow. They even let me help with that.

Having one whole open end of a barn has it's advantages at a time like this.

Wagon number 2.
These hard working farm boys got a real work out.


Even Grace helped.

What an amazing sight to have our very own hay in our very own hay mow.