We Have Alfalfa Bales

On Sunday we headed up to Madison to spend some life quality moments hanging with the family. I also gave Babe and Queen their 3-way shots. As always, both girls behaved beautifully. I wish I would have had more time to groom them down and spend a bit of time pampering them. I can’t wait to bring them home so I can spoil them rotten. Need to get cracking on the fencing.

After a few hours hanging with the family, Mike and I headed home to get some stuff done. Since we’d spend most of the weekend putzing around not really being productive we decided we better get something accomplished.

Mike and I tackled more of the siding on the garage. I think if we had an entire day, we could have the entire garage done! Hot diggity. As it was, we did get the siding on the front of the garage done so now from the house, the garage looks complete! Yeah! Now we only have two more sides that need just a bit more work. I can’t wait to start parking the truck in the garage!

While we were out working on the garage, our farmer friend stopped by and asked us if we were still interested in getting some small alfalfa bales. Heck yeah!! They were baling up the alfalfa field just to the south of us, the field that has been cut for more than week. Unfortunately that field was rained on for a week steady so I’m hoping the small squares don’t start to mold. I’ll be furious if they are moldy when I finally break into them this winter.

The farmer friend said he was going to start baling that evening so that we should prepare a spot when he gets them done. Since there was barely any wind you could hear him baling up the alfalfa. The farmer friend was actually trying out a new small square baler.

I was so excited. So Mike went back to working on the garage and I rode Maverick around. (We need to do some major work on directions. Neither he or I understand what I’m wanting. I’m asking the wrong questions apparently).

After I got done riding, I talked to Mike and we agreed that maybe we better go and get those small bales. The weather man was predicting rain, again! I didn’t want my bales of alfalfa to get rained on. So we ran down the road and found our 50 sum bales sitting in the field. We asked if we could go ahead and pull them off the field and they said ok!

The flatbed was already attached to the tractor so Mike drove the tractor down while I rode on the flatbed. I owe Mike a set of lights. There’s no approach to get into the field so we had to take the ditch and it ripped off some of his lights he added to the flatbed.

We started loading up the bales, hustling along since the clouds were rolling in and it was getting dark. We didn’t start throwing bales until about 8:30-9:00pm! We got about 1/3 way through and our farmer friend came over and helped throw the rest of the bales onto the flatbed. I’d hoped to get the bales out of the field so he wouldn’t have to handle them. My thinking was that maybe they would be cheaper (and not rained on).

Once we got down the row and had all the small bales picked up we asked how much he wanted for the bales. He said since was trying out a new baler and wanted to test it out anyway that he would cut us a deal. He is only charging me $2 per bale. When I bought the alfalfa two years ago, he charged me $3.5.0. I about fell out of my shoes when he said $2 a bale! I just hope that it wasn’t baled up too wet. I guess we’ll see.

I hoped back on the flatbed and Mike climbed up onto the tractor and we drove home. I have a couple of shots I need to add. Once I fill up the card I’ll get the pics added to the blog. Right now the bales are sitting on the flatbed in the big red shed. I want to wait a couple of days before unloading them. Some of them are really heavy! I need to get my pallets ready. I can’t wait to have a full barn ready for winter!

And to top it off, I talked with my hay guy on Sunday to verify the number of big squares I’ll need for the winter. He also told me that the price of hay wouldn’t be as expensive as last year. Not sure how that works since it’s been so cold and there won’t be as much hay, but I’ll take it no matter what. I have to buy an additional 20 big squares thanks to Maverick and Brego. Those pigs!

So that was my exciting Sunday. I love having the feeling of being prepared for winter and having all the hay ready to go. I absolutely love a full hay barn. It’s a very satisfying feeling to be prepared for the winter when we aren’t even half way through summer. Of course, the hay isn’t cut and it’s not yet sitting at our place but at least I’m on the list. The hay is supposed to be cut this week, weather permitting. Although it’s raining again today so no change of cutting hay in the rain. I sure hope that the rest of the week it stops raining so that they can get my hay cut. I want my hay sitting in the barn, smelling all fresh, and looking pretty.

I guess I’ll enjoy the alfalfa for now!