Aug 13
It’s about time!
Yes, I am still alive….
Between haying time and so many weeks of work away from home this past month, there has been precious little time to catch up on blogging. Haying our fields is finished, with the hard work done by Brook and his dear brother Lewis (who came out from Maryland to help this year).
Lewis shares Brook’s “oneness” with machines and had a very short learning curve at mowing and baling. He loved it and says that he will do it again next year! What a saint he is….
Lewis’s friend (and ours) Katherine came out the second week to join us…actually she and I arrived in Boise the same day and drove to Pine Valley together. Katherine and I tackled the garden and weeded, weeded, weeded. When I had to move on to other things, Katherine kept working in the garden….bless her.
They both live in more urban areas, but have farmer’s hearts….here they are as “American Gothic”:
Brook ran the balewagon, picking up hay, and moving them to the barns as Lewis baled…and after I got home, I helped him position the balewagon for each stack. He manages on his own, but it is so much more time efficient with me on the ground.
We came up short on hay this year, as did almost everyone else that we know….an idiosyncrasy of the long cool spring? Our delays in irrigation while getting the wheel-lines set up? Who knows? The result of all this is that we are haying some leased land this week while I am home to give us enough fodder for winter for our (too many) animals.
This field is an alfalfa/grass mix and so will go into the older barn where the bred ewes will overwinter, and be half of their daily hay ration while they are growing next year’s lambs.
Speaking of lambs and too many animals….I will be putting lambs and adult sheep for sale on the blog in the next few days. Hopefully on a brand new “sheep-for-sale” page that (our brilliant and talented) Ben is creating for us. I have hesitated to ask him since he is so busy with paying clients….but he says that it will happen soon. Stay tuned….
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That is the most amazing view! I could get used to looking at that.
What beautiful green hay that is, and what a blessing to have willing extra hands to help!
Having hay in the barn is a beautiful thing…and that hay wagon is awesome! It just dumps the load like that and you don’t have to unload/stack??? That is wonderful. Whoever thought that up was one clever person…probably related the person that invented cattle panels.
Glad to see you back on the blog.
Tammy
After we moved to OR and we began to make our own hay, we were very aware that we were too old to buck hay bales! So the balewagon has been an essential for us. We put up around 60 tons of hay a year; most of that quantity goes to feed the horses! Around 10 sheep per horse…hmmmm. Maybe we don’t really need to sell sheep but have fewer horses!!! But our bonds with the horses run even deeper than those with the sheep….so it is pretty hopeless
As long as we can still have enough hay to feed them all….
It was wonderful to see you and have you be able to share our repast with us! I can hardly wait for you and Brook to stop in at Chez LeFevre for a visit – we may have a couple of new sheep for you to look at too.
See you soon…lova and hugs to you both.
Lois,
when I first got shetlands, I used to read “the lists” more than I do now. I saw your name all the time, and copied out your advice on Tough Love for Rams, right?
Anyway, just found your blog through other West Coast blogs.
A pleasure. And I, too envy your haying operation. Why do we, in MN, need all-sided barns for storage? And I have never ever seen that sort of hay dump-wagon.
Cool!
Gail at littleredoakfarm.blogspot.com