This has been a crazy year. We moved from Southern California with big plans and schemes for success already in motion. I can't tell you how many times Susan and I have looked at each other with no idea how we were going to do it all. We go ahead anyway, wondering how things will work out. I've been told by one of the world's great explorers that this is the basis for any great adventure. If you already knew how everything would turn out - why would you ever leave home? The video posts and photos below will lead you through one of our busiest days in our busiest year...and hopefully show you why we love it all.
Video Post Monday Morning:
We've mowed down this field every year...to keep it cleaned up and to take a bit of loose hay for the horses. In the past few years I began to work a bit harder to understand how to make hay knowing that one day we'd be staying on and we'd need to feed our animals for the winter. Well, "one day" turned out to be Monday. And luckily, I got a lot of haying help from a young Island farmer, Adam King.
I met Adam because I heard he had an old square baler for sale. Square hay bales are relatively easy to store and use on a small farm like ours. Most farms have gone to the big round bales. But smaller works better for us. So I bought Adams' old Massey Ferguson baler and with it - I bought some help. Turns out Adam's uncle Doug knows these old machines about as well as anyone. So I asked for his help to get us ready to work. He came over on Thursday and had the old thing purring in a couple of hours. And I learned that a hay baler, like any boat, machine, or practically any singular noun in the Maritimes is a "she". After Doug finished his work, a fellow might rightly say, "Now that she's got the rust out of her, she'll run just as slick as anythin'!" If you aren't living in the Maritimes - please don't try this phrase at home.
Adam came over Saturday morning with his new John Deere tractor and a New Holland hay mower/conditioner. In about an hour, he'd mowed a bit more than 5 acres. The conditioner cracks the grass stems so the hay will dry faster. Then it's important to get the hay dry, baled and in the barn before it rains. Speed is a valuable asset and we were happy to hire some help.
Saturday afternoon I put our old wheel rake on the tractor and made nice fluffy windrows of hay. These would sit in the sun and wind and be turned again the following mid-day. Around here, keeping the Sabbath still keeps many folks from working on Sunday. I'm not of that tradition but I do make a point of not running machines on Sunday morning out of respect for my neighbors and to help keep the peace and quiet of a Sunday in the country. But by the time church was out on Sunday, I was hitched up and turning the hay to finish drying. And by Sunday afternoon, with clouds gathering and the forecast calling for showers, I knew I had to start baling and loading as fast as possible. We got a head start Sunday evening, but Monday would be the big day.
Baling on Monday Morning - Dark Skies and a Threat of Showers Push us On.
That's our new-old Massey Ferguson Model #10 in the field. After I had learned a few of the tricks of this old machine, I gave Susan a quick lesson and set her off on the windrows to finish the job. The baler missed a few now and then, but Susan did a great job and picked up all the hay. As the bales hit the ground, the rest of the crew loaded an old horse trailer and the Big Yellow Truck to pick them up from the field and deliver them to the barn. We unloaded the hay and bucked the bales up for stacking in the loft.
About now I should mention that we are grateful for a lot of help. Young strong backs are essential so we hired a couple of neighbor kids, Rachel and Logan, and we relied on the help and experience of our mature farming partners, Brian and Lorna, to load and stack in the barn. Their visiting friends, who had come up from the States on vacation pitched in too - working as hard as the rest of us to support the effort. Spencer proved to be the "strapping young son" every farm needs and our ten year old and his buddy came to the field to pick up bales too. Everyone shared the hard work and by 5:30 PM we had 500 bales in the barn. That should be enough for the horses and sheep to make it through the winter.
But we weren't done yet.
Lorna Shears Sheep in a Heap
Sheep Before...
Sheep After.
So the hay was baled, the sheep were shorn, Spencer delivered produce to Angela at the Sand Bar and Grill on Panmure Island and Susan even managed to dig some potatoes and sell some fresh salad greens to customers who came up the lane.
When the work was finally done for the day we had a lovely farm dinner with our friends, drank margaritas and danced to some good old rock and roll in the kitchen. We celebrated our harvest, hard work and good friends and then...we went to bed.
Good Night from Dunn Creek Farm.
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