More hay and rain!

Since the last post Dad and I have been very busy boys! We cut 35ac of grass on Monday looking at a good five days of sunny dry weather.

When I got to the field with Josh there was a bit of Ragwort pulling to do, to say the least! This yellow peril is a noxious weed that causes liver damage when eaten, it is un-palatable when the cattle are grazing but when dried in hay becomes palatable. As we don't chop the bales the cattle can pick it out of the hay when a plant sneaks through but this is best to be avoided!

Four hours of pulling later I made a start with the mowing and then followed in the next day with the tedder and threw it out. All seemed good and then the weather shifted, instead of the lovely sunny days we had chilly overcast grey days and no dry what so ever. On Thursday we decided to row the grass up to allow the ground to dry in between the gongs. To row up I have used my 6m lotus combi which leaves two 3m gongs on the field. This is a quick way of rowing the field up but it leaves alot of rows still on the field. Dad has borrowed a second hand rake from BW Mack, a side discharge 3m one.

This means that if I row up with the Lotus and he follows with his side discharge we have a gong every 9m making for drier ground, and with the sunshine on Friday we went for it!

With a gong every 9m instead of 3m I only had to drive up the field in my baler 33% fewer times saving fuel and time. So Dad in front with his rake and me behind we made ourselves 60 round bales of hay in a few hours and it was a good job done as we've had a good inch of rain since!! I forgot my camera so got my little sister to take some for a different perspective, see more of her work here

Hay we go again!

The hay cutting season has begun at Church Farm. To get the ball rolling we started with some lighter crops around the farm yard and although they yielded less than usual it was a good opportunity to get the kit up and running before the main crop.

With the dry spring we had this year it appears that the hay crop this year is going to coincide with the cereal harvest, usally i get the hay done before, so work load is going to be near maximum. To try and spread the workload Dad has been out with his John Deere 3720 punching above his weight. Much to my surprise he has managed to work the tedder, windrower combination on the field, although i have to take it there for him! 

The  hay was made and baled into small round bales for the horsey market. Once made again Dad was off to round them up.

Mum, Jacob and I were out for a walk on the farm and thought we would greet Dad on the field as he got back. Only a year old and Jake already gets excited when he sees a tractor, even more so when he sees Grandad!

It looks like we are going to have a busy summer!