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Photos of Spring 2004 Haying
We rented our hayfield out to the neighboring farm this year for rotational purposes. Before he disked it up for his soybean crop, we were able to get it mowed. We used tractor power since "Joe", one of our Belgian draft horses foundered.
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Paul starting to gather the windrow of cut grass. |
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Gathering the windrow. |
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Making a shock of hay. |
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Cyndi gathering the shock ... |
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...the lift ... |
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...and on to the hay wagon! |
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Laura, our tractor driver. Great job, Laura! |
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Photos of August 2004 Haying
This is a 2 acre pasture we use for our rotational grazing of our livestock. We let the clover / grass / alfalfa grow tall so the honey bees would benefit also. This pasture was cut and raked by draft power. Clover takes longer to dry than grass and heavy storms were forecasted. It was too wet to bale and too good of hay to be rained on. We decided to gather & feed loose.
Sure wish we still had the hay loader!
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Bess, a registered Belgian mare. |
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Cyndi is driving the forecart. A forecart is used when the implement to be used does not have a tongue set up for horses. |
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Paul is gathering the hay in the field and pitching it up to Mike who distributes it on the hay wagon. |
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To make it easier on Paul, Cyndi keep the team close the windrow and moves the wagon at Paul's pace. |
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Stacking the hay properly on the wagon is very important for getting the most hay on the wagon. The outer edges of the wagon are stacked first, each forkful overlapping the previous one creating vertical walls that holds themselveselves upright. The center is then filled in. If Mike were to pile all the hay in the middle of the wagon, he would soon have a hard time keeping the hay from slipping off the sides of the hay 'mountain'. |
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Photo of Summer 2006
Raking the hay with a side delivery rake with Bess & Buck. Maverick is along to supervise.
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