Hay Fever

Wow, it's been a while. Things have been busy around here! I'm hardly getting any sleep cause they hay is up and ready. That means that after I've cut it, raked it and it's all dried out, I then have to bale it in..the..middle..of..the..night......

Wait, that's not me. That would be what my husband does. Of course.

Okay, so even though the husband does all of the manual labor, I have been involved in hay season. My cowboy cuts it, rakes it, and bales it, and I sneeze the whole time. It's a great partnership.

So anyway. Let me show you one of our fields. The other day, I saw this happening..

It looked like my nephew, so I called my sister-in-law and asked if her son was out plowing that field. She said, "Yes, that's him." Then she paused, laughed, and said, "Oh, that's cute. 'Plowing.'" I then realized my mistake.

"Ahh!" I said, "That's not plowing, huh?! So what's he doing?"

She said, "Well, he's in a swather, so he's swathing."

Okay. There you have it. "Swathing." or, "cutting the hay" as some others might call it.

So he swathed the field, then we let the hay dry. Like this.

Do you see our horse staring longingly at this huge field of freshly-dried hay? I don't think she moved for two days. I'm serious. Every time I looked, she was standing right there! She finally moved after the second day. I guess she realized she'd never get to it.

Anyway, after it dries for a little while, they go back out and rake it... so it can dry more thoroughly, I suppose.

(Don't you just love how this city girl tries to describe all the processes and happenings on the farm? Me too.)

And then, when the hay is dry enough, they bale it. Now, why don't I have a very good picture of them baling the hay? Well, because I was asleep. I sleep from about 11PM to 8AM. Lately, my husband has not been sleeping. He's been out baling. Usually with my nephew, so the nephew is not sleeping either. Anyway, I was lucky enough that this was an early-morning-baling day, rather than a late-at-night baling night. So when I woke up, I grabbed my bathrobe, ran out to my front porch, and hurried and snapped these pictures.

You see, it's okay that I stood on my porch in my bathrobe, because most people are too far away to notice. My front porch is too far away for anyone to really see what I'm wearing when I stand on it. That's why one night, I even dared to run out there withOUT my bathrobe, so I could save my potted Easter Lily. Now that was a weird feeling. Never done that before. But it was dark and remember, we have no close neighbors....nobody saw....

Poor horse. She went back to her spot to stare at all that hay...

And they load it up and drive it somewhere else... (Pretty good details there, eh?)

And finally, the baler. It's hooked up to the tractor. Yeah, the red thing. That's a baler.

And there you have it folks. It's hay season! Hip Hip, Ho-ray! Hip Hip, Hor-HAY!