Hayfield cut

I finished cutting my hayfield at 6 pm.  Mid afternoon, while cutting, one big raincloud was to the West then came over.  It sprinkled for several minutes.  Just enough that I had to use the tractor's windshield wipers several times.  I kept cutting.  It could have been worse.  Twenty minutes later a larger and bluer raincloud formed to the SW.   That cloud acted normally.  That is, it headed to the SE over Kalispell and to Flathead Lake.

My cutting the grass stirred up the pollen.  It was flying through the air as I cut.  I was glad I had a tractor cab.  Even so I was sneezing a lot.   Even now my eyes are itchy.   The brief rain sprinkles made the pollen stick to the haybine.  I had to use a brush and an air compressor to clean it off the haybine when I was all done cutting.

I didn't start cutting the hayfield until after 1 pm.  This morning I moved the four heifers from the yard over to the fruit tree area.  The yard was mostly eaten down.  Overnight the heifers got half of the tarp off the little shed over the well.  Fortunately they hadn't gotten to tearing off the shed's roof shingles (yet!) when I found the tarp off the shed.

I had planned on moving the heifers from the yard to the NE pasture, then to the fruit tree area later.  But it took longer to eat the yard, and I prefer to have the fruit tree area eaten down before letting the heifers re-join the herd (and bull) on the 20th.  Better the heifers in the fruit tree area than the whole herd.

The problem?  While I had upgraded the tree protection in the NE pasture earlier this week, I had done nothing in the fruit tree area.  I spent the morning patching fixes to the fences around the trees.

After I cleaned the haybine and put it away I saw a large beautiful bald eagle circle nearby low over my cut hayfield.  It seemed like it was going to slowly land but instead it reached down in the field and picked up something then flew away to the trees in my pasture.  I could see it carrying some animal in its talons.  Not a mouse.  Bigger.  No gophers or pockets gophers in my hayfield.  It must have been a smallish bird.