Hay, hiking, balloon

Friday I got some more hay.  Donna's mother's place had eight acres of grass that had not been mowed for some years.  It also had weeds - some parts more than others.  I paid Wyatt to swath the field for me on Tuesday evening.  Donna has a baler and she baled the hay on Friday.

Initially the plan was to hitch the bale wagon to the baler, and standing on the bale wagon, I would pull and stack the bales as they came out of the baler.

Waiting for another bale

But the ground was very rough.  It was hard to stand on the wagon as it moved.  The bales were not tight due to the mostly thin swaths (the photo shows the thickest swaths).  The ground was too rough to rake the swaths into fewer rows without breaking Donna's rake.  Since the bales were not tight the rough ground made them shake on the wagon.  One bale fell off onto the ground and other bales shook loose of the twine.  So I switched to picking the bales up using my pickup as Donna continued to bale.

I ended up with between 105 to 110 bales (three pickup loads).  Due to the light bales, maybe two ton of hay.  Another 25 or so bales had so many weeds in them I took them to use as bedding for the cattle this Winter.  I'll limit the area I spread these bales for bedding in order to limit the area I have to spray for weeds next year.

I am storing these weedy bales in part of the loafing shed as the barn is now full with hay. (I even had to store 18 of the good bales under the side roof on the barn.)

It was in the 90s under a clear sky.  A hot day.  By 5 pm I was hot and sweaty and covered in hay.  This further hardened my resolve to get a round baler once I have my own baling equipment.


Saturday I went hiking.   Patti wanted to go to one of her favorite lakes in the Park: Cosley Lake.  Cosley Lake is in the very NE part of the Park - the furthest away from us.  It was a three hour drive one way to get there.  It was three and a half hours to hike 9 miles to reach the lake.  Several hours were spent lounging at the lake.  Three and a half hours out over the 9 miles with the last several miles uphill.  On the drive back we swung out pass Duck Lake away from the St Mary area and fire and curvier roads.  The fire and smoke were more active in the afternoon as the temperature was near 90 F with strong winds.  I got home after 9 pm,  15 hours after I left after 6 am.  Long day, tiring day and a good day even though, unusually for me, I got a couple blisters on my right foot.


Sunday evening a hot air balloon floated nearby before landing a little way (maybe a mile) to the north of the ranch.

Sunday was hot.  101 degrees for the high.  I must be getting used to the hot temperatures as, while it felt hot, it didn't feel much over 90 degrees to me.

Also, you can see with our dry air the temperature goes to extremes.  From a low of 42 in the morning we almost increased 70 degrees to our high temperature of 101. While we tied our record high temperature we also almost tied our record low temperature on the same day. My air conditioning is that I open all my windows at night to cool the house down.