In which it's time to say "Hay, hay, hay!" and I have help from city folks
This is what city people pack when heading out to buck hay:
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| water bottles, strawberries, some cold homemade pizza.... |
But I'm not complaining! Duana and Jason volunteered (yes! volunteered!) to help me pick up hay. And I rarely say "no" to volunteers!
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| Du and Selah get the back seat. Selah loves "country adventures." |
It's amazing how little room there is in the big truck when you cram in three adults and a happy dog. But we didn't have far to go. The hay field is only 15 minutes from the house.
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| If I had arms as long as Jason's, I'd probably carry hay bales the same way! |
I offered no instruction, other than, "put the hay in the trailer. We need 30 bales."
Jason didn't know about hay hooks, nor had he watched generations of farm folk yanking bales around by the strings. He's a big strong guy confronted with medium-small bales, so he just grabbed them like he was carrying a very prickly dog...
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| Sorry for the sunflare photo. Du is inside the trailer, arranging stuff to fit. |
...and tossed them in the trailer. Du appointed herself "tetris queen" and set about the task of arranging bales so that they would all fit. (I put 35 bales into the trailer last week, so I knew it was possible)
We grabbed the last seven bales from the truck, since we'd picked the field clean.
...and Du carefully crammed the final keystone bale into place.
And when we got to Haiku Farm:
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| Even under the roof, we tarp everything to deter mold. |
we topped up the hay piles in the barn. Now we've got enough hay for winter. That's a good feeling.
Whew.
Now it's time to explore all the food in that little bag they brought, right?
And hey, no surprise: it's good.
germans don't know about hay hooks either. then again rectangular bales are the exception to the rule here. most use roundbales.
ReplyDeletei was telling j that no hay is made on the wet side of the state but you seemed to prove me wrong here. am i wrong? i didn't know hay was a crop on the west side, other than very small self-produced hay making.
maybe you can help us get to the bottom of this.
oh - the quandary came from my 2-3 hours per day on the autobahns. i never see hay trucks. NEVER. j confirmed that hay is made all over germany and therefore does not need to travel. you buy your hay from the neighbors who make it. (true, we do.) but in washington i was fond of seeing large hay trucks on i90. i assume virtually all hay comes from the eastside.
Lytha, the huge trucks of hay from "my side" are mostly headed for export--Timothy from the Kittitas County (where I live) and alfalfa (mostly) from the Columbia Basin (Moses Lake). The farmer I bale for sends most of his to Japan, though sometimes it goes to California, and one year he supplied the Queen of England! We have a few of the smaller outfits sell locally, but not many. I get the slightly less than export quality in exchange for driving the tractor for three weeks.
ReplyDeleteDo those "City Folk" hire out? :-) Looks like you all burned through some calories!
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