HiveComb

We had rain last night. Not a deluge, not even what you’d call ‘a lot’ of rain, but we had enough to make me happy.

*Horses with the windrows in the background*

This time, it’s not because we’re short of water and the crops need us to go out and water everything by hand – we do, but it’s not that.

I’m delighted because of the work we put in yesterday.

I’ll explain. Last week, I looked at the local weather forecast for the long-term weather over the next 10 days. It hinted at sun and clear skies from Saturday to next Saturday, when the weather would break, we’d get thunderstorms etc. So we had a good 7 or 8 days to get the fields cut, dried and gathered in – plenty of time!

*This is the length of the grass - it has got a bit too long...*

We couldn’t cut the grass on Saturday and Sunday because the ground was so waterlogged the tractor would create furrows and damage the fields, so we planned to mow on Monday, tedder on Wednesday, tedder again on Thursday and collect on Friday and Saturday.

That would have been ideal… On Monday, Farmer @s0u1 went to mow, went to mow a meadow. One man and his dog, Tora, went to mow a meadow.
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Then the forecast started to change. For next Saturday, instead of the thunderstorms coming at the end of the day, late on, they were forecast to arrive early. Our plans changed accordingly.
Monday – mow
Tuesday – tedder
Wednesday – tedder again
Thursday – collect the Vineyard Paddock
Friday – collect the Lake View Paddock

And so, we mowed.

On Tuesday the weather was starting to concern us. It forecast one slight chance of rain on Thursday morning. 30% chance, for 1 hour. That shouldn’t have been too much of a worry, unless you added in the changes in the rest of the forecast. Thunderstorms were moving toward us at quite a rapid pace. They were forecast on Friday, all day, rather than just sporadic on Saturday. Now we had thunder on Friday, Saturday and possibly Sunday, but also, three days of rain.

Farmer @s0u1 went to tedder both fields on Tuesday and we hoped the sun would come out with enough intensity to dry the hay completely in just those two days.

Tuesday afternoon we decided to tedder the fields again, just to give us some leeway.

I’m glad we did!

Thursday’s forecast turned from 30% chance of rain for an hour to full-day showers. If hay gets wet before collecting, it can go mouldy in storage. You absolutely cannot feed mouldy hay to horses.

We planned our day accordingly, but even then, the plans went a little awry.

Wednesday morning, the plan was to get started as soon as possible. The Vineyard Paddock gets full sun first, so that’s where I started. @s0u1 had planned one last turn of the hay and he was going to do that while I began collecting the other field.
I went out on the quad bike to begin, but the night had been foggy, and the grass and hay were still damp. I had to leave it at least a couple of hours to dry completely. @s0u1 went out into the Lake View field and came back with the same conclusion – too wet.

Mid-day, I went out to start collecting the hay. Thankfully, the sun had done its work and I began pushing the windrows into clumps to make it easier to collect.

*I have a technique. I walk a few yards up the windrow, decide where to start from, then I place the pitchfork into the starting point and push. I keep the tines of the fork turned up so they don't dig into the ground and I push all the hay into one large pile. Then I move to the next and so on.*

I started at the closest end, worked to half way and went up to the top to work back to the middle. Let me tell you, working in the mid-day sun is hard. We had a little respite with a breeze, but not enough and I was stubborn and stupid as it turned out. I was determined to finish what I’d started and by the end of that part of the work, I was struggling. I could hardly lift my feet to walk back. I made it to the gate where I had a rest and then went indoors. Trev brought me a glass of water – not straight from the fridge, that’s not the way to go when someone needs a drink immediately. My throat spasmed and felt like it was closing up. I took a small drink of water and the spasm eased a little.

I have never experienced that before. It was scary! I could breathe, but not swallow or talk. I stretched and moved my neck to try to ease the spasm and nothing worked. I was on the verge of panic.
When I was going through chemo and radiotherapy, I was told by the nurse that I must NOT eat or drink anything straight from the fridge because the chemo I was taking caused my body to be hyper-sensitive to cold and I could go into anaphylactic shock. What a time to have a flash-back memory! I don’t think it was a residue of the chemo treatment that caused the spasm (it’s been a long time, plus I was too hot, not too cold) but my brain went there, anyway!
I sat and recovered for a while. When I finally went back outside, my legs were still wobbly, @s0u1 told me to go back indoors, but I couldn’t leave him to do all the work on his own.

Mid-afternoon, we took a break and went indoors to watch the launch of the space shuttle thing - Starliner.

Then we went back out to work.

*Bagged and waiting* *Getting desperate for bags, we utilised garden bags*

It was getting late by the time we started putting the hay in the barn, but we still had a long way to go before we’d finished. We knew we didn’t have enough bags to store the hay, so we had to adapt.

The box in front is last year's hay. This year's hay is green and still bright. There's nothing wrong with last year's hay. The horses will get through that during the hot season this year, when the grass doesn't grow and we have to supplement their feed

*The first two loads brought in and stacked*

We’d planned to stack the bags full of hay in the barn, but we still needed almost as many bags as we’d filled, just to get the Lake View Paddock in.
The new plan was to stack the hay in the barn using the ‘sandcastle method’. Re-utilising the bags in this way saved a lot of time. Once we’d brought in all the hay from the Vineyard Paddock, we had a drink and set-to to fetch the last of the hay in.

*Obviously the hay doesn't stack as well out of the bag...* *Almost done with this field, we're just on our last load from Vineyard Paddock* *We still have to bale this if we can*

The horses were fascinated. The dog was being silly and even though we were getting close to sunset, it was still hot. I took Tora indoors for her own good.

Corner of Lake View Paddock with one windrow in shade, the other in full sun, just before sunset

*All bagged up. You can see the difference - the sky is clear, no clouds, but the sun has set behind the trees, just about to get dark*

@s0u1 went to put the chickens away and check/close-up the greenhouse. Unfortunately, the plants didn’t get watered last night, they’d have to wait.

At last, we’d packed the hay into bags and then we team-worked to getting the bags back to the house. One bag was bungeed to the rack on the back of the quad bike and @s0u1 drove close to another bag, which I grabbed and dragged behind us. I had to brace myself with the opposing hand on the back rack, and he had to be careful driving through the orchard so we didn’t wipe-out any of the new trees, but we made it.

We fetched the last bags in at around 21:30. The sun had set, but it was still light enough to see what we were doing, especially with the benefit of the quad bike’s lights.

*All in from the field, just a fence to dismantle in order to get the bags into the stable where they will be stored for the moment*

The total of 20 bags from the Vineyard Paddock and 12 and a half from Lake View Paddock was packed and stored, with just the tractor and ride-on mower to put away. It was almost full-dark when I fetched him from the barn and I hope the neighbours will forgive the noise we made in putting everything away at 22:30 or thereabouts.

*Last picture before putting the vehicles away*

We had soup for supper (packet mix, kettle, boiled water) and then we collapsed into bed, seized-up and mindful of our advancing years!

This morning, it had rained and all our efforts were vindicated. We could have taken a chance, but I am so glad we didn’t. Make hay while the sun shines!

29 degrees for a good part of the day yesterday. I remember at one point, he said, "It's going to get 2 degrees hotter before it starts cooling down." I was baked by then (and not in a good way).
I ache in places I'd forgotten about and my arm and chest muscles can tell their own tale about dragging bags of hay behind a quad bike!

*This morning - Vineyard Paddock* *This morning Lake View Paddock* *Where we put the hay last night to save time*