Rest of the Hay

Last Tuesday, I came home to find not only my roof being done, but my nephew had mowed the back hill.  This had to be done to get me the rest of the hay I need to get through the winter.

Thursday, I came home to see that he had put it into windrows.

They were already baling it.

Switching to a new hayrack

It’s not easy to do small square bales on the big hill.

But they did it.

They filled two more hayracks.

Sunday morning, we finished putting it in the barn.

A full barn is a good feeling.

Unloading Hay

Saturday turned out to be fairly busy.  My nephew decided it was the perfect day to unload hay.  And it was. The rain drained the humidity from the air, and it was cooler with a nice breeze.  So he brought out the elevator.

Sky had fun barking at them.

Then it wasn’t long before he pulled in with the hayrack.

We had two racks like this to unload.

Once we got the barn doors open, we set up the elevator.

These were some fairly heavy bales, but we got them stacked.

That’s a good dent in what I need for winter.   There was one bale that didn’t quite make it to getting stacked, so I gave it to the kids left up north.

Perdita and Chunky in front; Olaf in back

As soon as the goats came up from pasture, they snacked on the pile that formed under the elevator.

Caroline

Soon, my nephew will mow the back hill, and we’ll get the rest of the winter hay off of it.

Back on the Back

When they were baling hay on the Back Forty, they were careful to close the gates so nobody got on the back side.  Remember, I had everyone shut off because they goats were in the corn field.  I have posts, but I’ve been waiting for the hay to be made before I went out and fixed fence.  Well, when they had to change hay racks, they didn’t see the llamas, so they left the gates open for the few minutes it took to switch racks.  Yep, the llamas came in.

Aurora, Maybeline, and Odie coming through the gates the next day.

We tried getting them out.  But they were having none of it.  And you can’t herd llamas.  Odie just kicked her heels up and laughed at me when I tried herding them out.

Odie

So I did a quick hobble job to hold them out of the corn field for now, and everyone is back on the back half of the Back Forty.

No goats in the corn!

Even Haley made it out there.

Notice how brown it is.  Luckily, we had about two-tenths of an inch of rain right after we finished making the hay, but we are still way too dry.

Pretzel running to get a bottle. Poor girl just had her mid-day bottle cut.

Soon, this back hill will get cut and made into the rest of the hay I need for winter.

Getting the barn filled with hay will make me feel good.