Donna's hay - almost done

Donna is almost done with her hay.  It has been a challenging year.  The day after that disastrous day of baling, Donna's daughter and son-in-law came back for more hay even though it was a long day for them.   Four hour drive here, hours baling and loading hay, then a five hour drive back home with the loaded trailer.  And add the time it took to unload the trailer.  They didn't get much sleep.

Donna spent time Thursday Friday baling using Wyatt's baler.  Her baler is not fixed.  Donna baled until it got hot in the afternoon and then her daughter took over the baling and the son-in-law loaded the trailer. After two loads of hay (Wednesday and Thursday) the daughter and son-in-law filled their hay shed.  They didn't need any more hay and went to sleep to catch up on their sleep.  Donna still had a good portion of her field left to do.

Donna spent time Friday baling more of her field using Wyatt's baler.  Wyatt's baler has a problem where every so often the bale will break open when the baler unloads it.  That hay then needs to be re-baled.  Eventually on Friday Donna had enough.  Most, but not all, of her field had been baled.  Donna decided to call it quits and leave the rest un-baled.

Saturday Donna learned that Wyatt still had a little baling work left to do.  He needed to re-bale some of his broken bales, plus one last row of hay.  So Donna returned Wyatt's baler.   First she came over to bale my straw.  We had planned to re-bale my straw when I did my second hay cutting and Donna would come over to bale some of my hay so I would have some small bales.  Since we aren't sure if her baler will be fixed Donna came to bale my straw.

Wyatt's baler and my straw.

While my pile of loose straw looked big, I ended up with seven and a half straw bales.  I carried them up a ladder to store the straw bales in the barn's attic.

I put the small loose straw (seen in the previous photo) that the baler had as leftover into these former tubs that the cattle had for mineral lick.  No sense in wasting the straw.  I didn't feel like carrying these tubs up to the attic.   The hay in the background was left over from last year.

Since Donna had extra bales, and it was uncertain if her baler would be fixed before my second hay cutting, I got my small bales from Donna's field late Saturday afternoon and evening.  The temperature was in the 80s and the bales weighed 75 lbs each.  Donna's bales had stacked six high in my barn; bales from Wyatt's baler stacked five high in my barn.  I got the 100+ bales on Saturday until I couldn't do anymore that day.   Sunday I came and got - for me - the last 20 bales.   My barn is mostly filled.   I do have a narrow walking part from front to back.   I filled my barn more than usual as most likely Donna and her baler won't be here next year.

I'm tired.

Donna still has lots of bales. Donna plans to sell the rest of her bales.  The other people who earlier said they would be interested, got hay and don't need more.  One other person may be interested.  If that falls through then an ad on Craigslist will be used.

For the rest of the unbaled hay, Donna would like it to be gone.  She plans to rake it on Monday and then have me bale it.  It is the short grass I had trouble cutting with my haybine.  Wyatt said his baler has trouble baling short grass and that was why Donna had trouble baling that grass.   I think my baler will be able to bale that grass.

Stay tuned.