Haying

jennigrey · #1 07/14/13, 10:11 AM

Spent the last few days helping a friend put up his crop of first cutting. My back is out of whack so all I could do was drive the team while others stacked. Some years I take my own team over, but right now I can't sit the three hours necessary to drive the horse van that far. I have to lay in the back seat of the car while DH drives.

I do not make a very good passenger.
"HOW FAST ARE YOU GOING???"
"Under the speed limit!"
"Oh...."

My friend raises registered Shires and makes hay, beef, taters, onions, garlic in Sequim, Washington. High Bridge Shires on Plowsong Farm.

Anyhow, thought some of you might like to see how we lift the bales with horses. Ground-driven bale lifter that hooks onto a little pocket bolted to the side of the wagon. When you've got a full load, someone climbs down the side of the bale lifter and detaches it from the wagon. Drive to the hay shed, back in, unload, go back out for another load. Sure beats running alongside the truck and trailer, trying to heave them up from the ground to the top of the stack.

goodhors · #2 07/14/13, 11:24 AM

Thanks for the photos, that hay lifter has to be worth a million dollars in body saving on a hot day!! What a great idea for ANY hay wagon without a kicker baler!!

Horses look nice, doing a good job with their load. Some of that "may be due to the driver" directing things. Ha Ha

Glad to hear about folks getting their hay up, and nice looking hay too. They have been going crazy locally, getting the old, rained on, overgrown fields cut and baled, to get it off for second cutting. They had about 9 days of GREAT weather, with rain due tomorrow, so laggards deserve their lost hay. Rain should do a good job kick-starting the second cutting grasses.

Helped my friend get her little field of hay into the barn, she just found someone last Monday to get her hay done. The guy she used previously never called, so when she called him, he announced he had retired from the hay business and she was SHOCKED! Scrambled around and found the second guy, who was REALLY BUSY haying, but worked her in. Hay is nicely green, DRY, so the bales look good for first cut. He did little kicker bales, with grass hay they only weighed in about 25-35 pounds, but JUST the right size for her, and her bad wrists to manage this winter. Light weight sure made unloading and stacking go fast!! She will get more hay with a second cutting, may have enough to sell extra, since her FAT horses don't need the richer cut.

Irish Pixie · #3 07/14/13, 11:28 AM

The bale lifter is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Thanks for the pictures.

jennigrey · #4 07/14/13, 02:14 PM

The off horse is a young gelding. This was his first time on the wagon. He got broke over the winter, pulling a little ground sled to deliver hay to the herd each day. Then this spring he did some plowing and disking in the garden. He was put in shafts for a little bit to introduce him to the concept of backing into a britchen. Then he got hooked with a team-mate on the forecart to harrow the pastures and to introduce him to a tongue. The hay wagon was his first time backing a load and he really sat down and put his butt into it. Did a great job. I like him a lot. His name is Dillon.

bergere · #5 07/15/13, 06:15 AM

Love to see it when folks are able to hay and way cool, you get to do it by Draft.

But sorry to hear your back hurts, hope you are feeling better soon!

jennigrey · #6 07/15/13, 11:36 AM

There was a teeny-tiny window for a young first cutting earlier this spring and a few people were able to get that off. Those that didn't, well, some of them made cow silage from the first cutting, some just brush-hogged it. If they didn't take it off in some shape or form, they're taking it off as straw now. Doesn't seem to stop them from trying to bale and sell it though. Can't tell you how many times I've gone to see "grass hay for sale" and found that it was almost entirely straw stems with some seed heads - leaf totally gone. No thanks. I would feed it to my horses for something to keep them busy in the winter but I certainly am not going to pay five dollars a bale for the privilege.

My friend grazes off the first cutting, drags the heck out of the pasture, then lets it come on for hay. He will be putting the water to it now for a second cutting. They have to irrigate where he is - hardly any rain, as Sequim is in a rain shadow behind the Olympic mountains.

jennigrey · #7 07/15/13, 11:39 AM

Putting up hay with the horses gives the job a reasonable rhythm and pace. I find it very enjoyable and satisfying.

GrannyCarol · #8 07/15/13, 02:20 PM

Ahhhh hay in Eastern WA does need to be irrigated, but you can sure get great hay! It's been hot and dry (as usual) this summer, with a few rainstorms. Of course I live in the driest part of the state...

jennigrey · #9 07/15/13, 02:47 PM

Wish I could afford the Eastern Washington hay! That stuff is superb. Lots of it gets exported to the sheiks in the middle east and to Japan to feed multi-million dollar racehorses. Us poor farmers on the "wet side" of the mountains are stuck paying upwards of $350 per ton if we want to get our calloused, dirty hands on it. I've seen what it sells for out of the field, though, and it can be very reasonable. But once I pay the fuel to go over there and bring it home I'm up to the feed store price again so it's out of my reach.

GrannyCarol · #10 07/15/13, 03:14 PM

We used to buy it from a friend a few miles from here - grass alfalfa mix - for a couple hundred a ton, but that was several years ago. I don't know that we got a great price break, I think it was what the haulers were paying too, but it was great hay. It cost us a bit to fire up our old sad pickup to go get it... hehe At 10 mpg, it wasn't cheap to run!

jennigrey · #11 07/15/13, 04:17 PM

Yep, 10mpg is about what our crusty Ol Faithful gets too. But probably 7mpg going up Snoqualmie Pass at 35mph with a trailer of hay.

GrannyCarol · #12 07/16/13, 09:27 PM

Sorry about the thread drift, I really enjoy the pictures of the horse teams haying!

kscowboy · #13 07/17/13, 11:01 PM

Ahh , lovely Sequim , we lived up there for a few years in the late seventies out by the duck preserve and the spit , guess its all suburbia now , but we sure loved it up there

jennigrey · #14 07/18/13, 02:30 AM

I'm sure I've driven and ridden through/past your old stomping grounds. My friend's farm is right about at Kitchen-Dick and Woodcock. I sometimes take my horses out to the Dungeness Spit.

The amount of development out there in the last ten years is ASTOUNDING.