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
Good grief that is a lot of ragwort glad I'd didn't have to clear tha lot with my rag-fork!
ReplyDeleteTip of the iceberg Carol!! Brother in law Josh has been pulling ragwort for most of the week, his soft townie hands have taken a bit of a battering!
ReplyDeleteGood morning, Just read this vis a link given by Caroline Mytton ~ great post and great pics. Keep up the good work :-)
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