Well I spent most of Friday being a mechanic. I was able to bale hay for a while until I had the baler explode again. Same problem, one of the entire rows of pickup tines gave out when I tried to push a huge clump into the baler. This of course got jammed inside the baler and I was done. So then I proceeded to tear the baler apart again except this time I broke one pickup tine on the left side and an entire row on the right side. So I had to take off all of the pickup guidance channels but three. Of course I had three bolts that I could not loosen. Those hex key heads might be smooth for the incoming grass but there is no room inside the baler to really put some English on the bolt and I had to grind off three more bolt heads. Luckily, they were not any of the bolts I had just installed last week. I am sure that the bolts are kinda welding themselves to the channels with rust. Once I grind off the heads I can turn the lower part of the bolt with my fingers. I am even hosing them with some penetrating lubricant prior to attempting their removal. Luckily, I performed no blood sacrifice on their removal. My hands are still trying to heal from the first attempt.

I wanted to use the tractor to haul the trailer instead of the pickup. There is a tight corner at the far end and there is no reason to use the pickup. Unfortunately, I could not find the correct bar with a 2 5/8” ball mounted on it. I ended up chaining it to a three point bar. Not exactly secure but it lasted for two days and I ordered a premade three point hitch with a 2” receiver for a stinger so I can use a 2 5/8” ball and the trailer will be secure. I ordered it on Saturday and it should arrive by Monday, that is pretty fast! So on Saturday Annmarie and I went out and started to pickup bales out of the field and unload them into the barn. I only turned about 75% of the bales in field one and it was noticeable. We had some wet soldiers so those got set outside the barn on their side to dry. They will be fed to the boys in Alcatraz and the yearlings in the orchard. Nothing goes to waste. Every time we picked up a load we grabbed two bales that had to be dumped and were not wrapped. Those go to animals in Alcatraz, orchard or the horse. We made four trips to pickup hay and unloaded three loads into the barn (191 bales). The two of us got 4 ton loaded into the barn on Saturday and one ton of soldiers drying out (51 bales).

We were able to get a great view of the new calf. I ended up dumping six bales off the side of the trailer right near the gate and the cows got free food. She was very visible.

On Sunday I went to TJ Hooker’s house and sheared his alpaca. I ended up shearing it standing up. I only cut it once, but it had not been shorn ever and it was three years old so it was a little wild. I was able to trim its toes and even had to grind its teeth straight. I did not need to cut off its fighting teeth as they were quite small. I will probably have to do that next year. I told him to not wait so long. I am still trying to decide if trading shearing for fencing material is a realistic business proposition.

Afterwards I went home to pickup more bales of hay. The Quiet One and Rock Slayer came out to help. We unloaded the load waiting for us into the barn and it was time to take the stack from 8 feet height to 16 feet, that top half is the hardest! The Quiet One did most of the crawling around on top of the bales while the Rock Slayer and I tossed them up to her. We picked up five more loads and put three of them into the barn. We added another 7 ton of hay into the barn and then stacked another 3 ton over by the grain bins. Rock Slayer had to leave but the Quiet One was game to keep going until we picked up all the bales. We had to make three more trips to get all of the bales. We did open up field two so the cows can get in there and eat the downed unbaled hay and eat the green grass. Field one is all closed up and if we get more rain I may get a second cutting off of field one.

We did stop and look at the Gingerman’s hive up outside of field one. It is still alive and kicking. Not a ton of bees but they are working and are present. They were pretty calm, I picked the lid off without any protection and peeked inside the hive.

We ended up piling another 435 bales or 8.7 tons of hay over by the grain bins. The bales weigh around 40# so they can be thrown and moved easily but after 1000 bales it starts to add up! I did learn that I can only throw the bales about ten feet into the air. I just cannot get any higher. I only ended up with three blisters between my fingers from the hay hooks. Even with gloves those parts of my hand don’t get a lot of friction. I do change out which fingers the hooks go between on a regular basis in an attempt to slow down the blisters.

Overall, I am super excited about the hay. I had a neighbor offer up about 3-4 more acres to cut and I still need to cut down by the schoolhouse plus I still have a second cutting on the Naked Gardener’s property. We are going to not purchase any hay this year for the cows and feed out what we have. I will need to get the hay rearranged in the machine shed so I can put more small bales in there. I also need to fix the wall of the old lamb shed so that I can stick bales in there for the winter. It’s a good hay year.