Redneck Hay Truck!

This was a true Redneck move!! The last of our hay (that we got baled), the final 30 bales that wouldn't fit on the wagon, got sucessfully stacked on hubby's S-10. 30 bales! In the picture are hubby and The Mouth.

Another view, notice the S-10 is basically sitting almost on the ground! This truck has proven itself to be the ultimate farm truck, it will haul anything and keep on going. It doesn't even have four wheel drive, but it will go through just about anything! It's taught at least 3 of our kids how to drive a stick shift in a vehicle (they got the basics on the tractors, but in a truck it's a bit different) and the clutch is finally starting to wear out, but I have no doubt it will keep going for quite awhile yet. And when it dies, well, we have lots of spare parts to either build another truck or keep this one going for awhile!

The Mouth followed behind us as we drove from the hayfield to the barn, and she kept telling us that the load was leaning a bit, we didn't notice from the cab (which sounded like it was going to collapse in on us at any time), but when getting out and looking, this is what we saw.

I'm not sure how much further we would have made it, but we didn't lose a single bale.

We had to quit early, as the hay was not quite cured enough to really bale, but we wanted to get as much in the barn as possible last night as it's supposed to rain today. There is a bit left out on the field, if the rain will hold off until later tonight, we'll be gold!

Bad news though, by this time of year our barn should be full, fuller, and fullest, with hay still coming in, trying to find any available nook and cranny to stack it in, but not so this year! It is maybe only half filled. Not good! Because of the weather (lots of rain, and not enough good days in a row in between rains) hay is scarce this year, and even if there were extra available to buy, it would be soooo expensive that we just couldn't do it. We'll be scrambling through 2nd cutting just to get enough to fill our barn and also the guy we usually hay with. We need enough to feed 3 horses and 2 cows through the winter, approx 1500 bales, he needs much more than that as he's got 6 horses and 16 head of cattle.

This morning I can't even hardly move, or talk. The hay dust gets in your lungs (I'm sure it's not real good for you - at least it's natural, and not chemicalized and fertilized) and my 50 year old body just hurts everywhere, but we push on, in January when we have still at least 1/2 barn full of hay, it's nice to remember how hot, humid, sticky, grimy, grubby, and exhausted we felt in July and August just getting all of this done.

This year, once we have our primary field all cut and baled, we're going to plow it under and plant corn for a few years. This field is getting too weedy. The plowing under and planting corn for a few years will eliminate a lot of the weeds, and then we'll plow it under again and put in a regular pasture mix (and with the price of corn, we'll be able to not only trade or sell that for quality hay but we'll be able to raise up more cattle and pigs, which will make money too). I really do enjoy this time out on and under the tractors.... My hands look like they should belong to an ages old farmer, there's grease under my nails that won't come out, there's scratches and slivers from the hay, there's scuffs from slipping with the wrenches, there's calluses from continually lifting, pushing, pulling... not real lady-like, but I really don't care. I'd rather have hands that look like they've seen some hard time and able to do what I need them to do than hands that look like they just paraded out of the nail salon. And right now, hoo boy, do they look rough!