Hay baled

Wyatt baled my hay today.  Usually he waits another day for the hay to dry but usually that is too long to my liking as the hay often gets drier than I'd like.   This time I convinced him to come today, bale a few bales, then check to see if the hay is dry enough.  As expected by me the hay was dry enough and ready to bale.

I am back to about my normal production after a dry and low production year last year.

Last year my share of the bales was 60 bales and this year I got 152 bales.  I would have gotten more but Wyatt's swather's teeth were getting dull and didn't cut the grass well enough.  Wyatt didn't sharpen the teeth until he was a third to a half done cutting my field.  You can see the uneven cut in the following photo and the grass left uncut.

As Wyatt started to bale I cleared the barn of miscellaneous stuff I was storing there.  Since I didn't get cattle this year, I still have last year's hay in the barn taking up over half the room.  The barn can hold around 250 bales of hay when all the space is used.  I already had 150 bales in the barn.

I stacked 82 bales in the barn this evening.  If I had put another 30 bales in the barn I would have no path through the barn.  Dan said he would buy my remaining 70 bales.  *Whew*  Saved.  Since he will get the bales tomorrow I don't have to do any more with them.

To get the 82 bales in the barn I used my hauler and not my pickup.  It takes longer but does save me from jumping in and out of the pickup.

I finished getting my bales in the barn as it got dark.

As I transported the bales the horses remained in the NE pasture and I was able to leave open the side gate to the hayfield.  After I had finished storing in the bales I went to the house to get a shovel.  While I was there the horses started to gallop east across the NE pasture.  Then they turned and headed west at a thundering gallop.

When they ran into the corral I slipped through the rail fence and ran to the open gate.  Those darn horses ran to the south of the barn but I was able to get to the gate before they did.  The horses normally are very mellow so I don't know what got into them.  But with the state they were in the last thing I needed was for them to escape into the hayfield when the hayfield gate to the road was open to let Wyatt remove his equipment.

Here are the stages of my hayfield this year.