Finally raking my hay

It rained again last night.   .07 of an inch of moisture.    I had an idea it was going to rain.  Several weather forecasts had a chance of rain.  Some a minor chance.  Some a small chance.  Some forecasts has rain missing us and staying in SW Montana.  Donna thought there was little to no chance of rain. Instead of raking my hay on Thursday, Donna thought I could start baling it late afternoon.  No....  I thought it was going to rain.  And sure enough it did overnight.  Not only overnight, but clouds built up in the morning and we had another rain shower around noon.  Yet another cold front too.

So I had held off from raking my hay.  I didn't want to rake and then re-rake my hay.  At 3 pm the clouds looked like they would no longer form rain clouds so I started to rake my hay.  I figured it would take me 4 hours or so to rake the hayfield.  A little over 6 hours before I finished.  I also planned on hooking up my baler and get it all ready to go tomorrow.  Since raking took so long I only had time before dark to hook up the baler to the tractor.  I then discovered that last year I forgot to mark the baler's four hydraulic hoses with different paint colors so I would know which hose went to which hydraulic connection on the tractor.  So tomorrow morning I need to figure it out, and then mark them with paint this time.  And I need to also grease the baler.   Then I can get to baling my hay.

Our next cold front is suppose to arrive on Sunday.  The weather forecast had now moved it to arrive Saturday night/Sunday morning.  Not Sunday night like they predicted before.  So I will be busy tomorrow and hopefully get everything baled.  If not, and it rains again....  *sigh*    "Mother Nature.  Can't you give me two days at least?!"

In the photos you can see the grass is already growing.

Initially I used a pitchfork to get the hay out of the tower's footprints.  I don't know what it is about the towers, but the hay under the towers was still wet.

To rake the hay, as I had no place to initially rake a windrow without it combining with another windrow, I started raking the hay in the middle of the field where I had last cut the hay.  That windrow was the shortest windrow.

Raking from the inside to the outside meant some windrows were partially crossed to make a new windrow.  Sometimes crossing windrows meant the new windrow had piles of hay.  Hopefully this won't make it hard for the baler to handle.

You can see how the hay laying there for almost a week was affecting the grass underneath the windrow.