Alfalfa

Awhile back we'd called our local farmer and asked if he had or was going to bale any alfalfa. I wanted a few bales to get us through the winter. The hard keepers definitely need alfalfa during the cold winter months.  At the time, he said he didnt' have any but was planning on putting up some 4th cutting later in the fall.  So, it wasn't a definite thing because, well, it's South Dakota and we could either get too much rain or even snow before he got it baled and I'd be without any alfalfa.

About the same time we put in our order, someone posted on craigslist that they had 100 bales of alfalfa and they were only a few miles away. So we ended up buying all the bales (even though we didn't need that many). They were lighter bales and a bit more flaky than I liked but we needed them and it was a sure thing.

We loaded them up onto the flatbed, and that's where they sit. We haven't had time to unload and stack them into the hay barn. It's a lot more tricky now because we have to step up about two and a half feet through the people door to get into the hay barn. The hay barn is full of big squares. And there hasn't been any time to mess with unloading alfalfa. (We have to lock the herd out to unload alfalfa this way).

But on Sunday, our farmer neighbor called to say that our bales were sitting in the field waiting for us. Unfortunately, as I was looking out the window, a big black cloud was rolling up on us...FAST. I was hoping to get out there before the rain started. I didn't want wet alfalfa. As it was, it had already been rained on a couple of times last week.

Mike pulled the old Ford out so we could load our small number of bales into the back of the truck. But by the time we had gotten to the field, we'd already gotten a good sprinkle. But we loaded the bales up as fast as we could. These bales are a LOT heavier. I'm wishing we would have waited and taken all the bales our farmer had put up instead of going to get the other bales. But these bales are HEAVY. It's going to take a lot longer to unload and stack these bales.

Luckily the rain didn't last for very long (just as long as we were out there). And then we saw a rainbow. I would have enjoyed it had the alfalfa bales been covered. So now we have 100+ bales to unload and stack into the hay barn as soon as we can. I'm not sure when that will be. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.