Gettin' Hay...

....while the gettin' is good.

This year we were fortunate to get our hay fresh from the farmer's field. Last year we got skunked at the first cutting due to loss from rain damage to the farmer's stack. Then he limited the number we could buy at his second cutting because he had more clients than hay. But this was a good year and he let us have all we could take. So we made 2 trips out to the country to fetch hay.

The farmer and his hands were still baling and stacking when we arrived at the field. They were hustling to beat the weather.

We've had a lot of heavy afternoon Thunderstorms this Spring. The farmers wife told me the night before, while she was working the baler, she was praying that the rain would miss them. It poured buckets that evening and came within 5 miles of their field, but they were spared. Which meant we were able to pick up nice, dry bales the next day.

My husband secures the load on the trailer.

Back at the barn, the hay is unloaded and lifted to the loft.

We're still perfecting our form, but we've got it down pretty good now. We stair-step the bales on the truck & trailer and toss them up to the loft. When we get to the lower layers on the trailer, we use a hoist my husband rigged up. It's slow and steady, but gets the job done and everyone can catch their breath.

Ever watchful, Miss Misty supervises Miss K.


Hey Girlie, open my door and I'll taste...er...I'll help you with that hay bale.

It's a good feeling at the beginning of summer to know we can feed the horses through the winter.

Thank you to family and friends for all your hard work and help.

Note: We're very careful to store dry bales in the loft and we don't stack them tightly up there. We stack just 4 layers high and leave space between rows of bales to allow air flow. You want to be very cautious of combustion fire when storing hay in a loft.