Under the Water Line

I’m back and just in time for Stewart Mackinder’s pick for this week’s header challenge,  “Under the Water Line”! 

I should be super excited that this is the theme.  I’ve been gone from the weekly Header Challenge and blogging actually because our one and only camera disappeared a couple of Sundays ago.  Low and behold the camera that I chose from Mike’s pawnshop on Monday to tied me over until Christmas or my anniversary or Easter or Mother’s day or my birthday, turned out to be waterproof to four feet and that meant I could take pictures here:

That looked like this!:  

Exciting huh!  Except all I really have to say is: 

Stewart!  Really?  This is your pick?  More about water?!

This Pacific Northwest Woman who normally delights in the weather here and loves the rain, has, this very week, been tipped over the scales.   I dont’ even wanna drink water, or make coffee with water, or bathe in water, or…

We got held up from cutting hay immediately after the Fourth (health reasons for our Hay Man, who owns the mower, rake and baler and the one tractor that operates the mower and the baler (Dirt puts the rake on his tractor to save time), but a few days wasn’t going to be bad.  In fact the grass was holding pretty well and more time wasn’t going to be a problem.  The forecast went a little iffy for this week late last week but then by Friday evening it was good.  Not a blistering hot forecast, but good, no rain.  

Held up on Saturday due to equipment moving issues but the forecast continued to show partly sunny partly cloudy no chance of rain for the whole of the week.

So our Hay Man cut on Sunday.  All of the fields that are useable this year were cut.  It is about seventy percent of our hay for the entire year, we supplement with another local farmer’s grass hay that we pick up later in the month and a bit of alfalfa from the feed store when the ewe’s lamb.

Well as things would have it this year, the year of water, the forecast changed.  First there was just a hint of rain, then they added more. 

So on Monday, Dirt decided to rake a little and see how it looked.  Normally Monday would have been the day the hay would usually lay cut but not raked, so it could cure.  Then they would rake it the next day and then bale it the next.  But because there now was rain in the forecast and thick clouds overhead, Dirt raked a bit on Monday.  That is the picture in my header, Dirt farming “under the water line”.

Tuesday our hay man and the baler arrived back at the Farm early in the morning in hopes to bale. Under yet another water line, see it up there?  Prayers were flowin’ that morning but not the rain. I even got to re-rake what Dirt had raked the night before, to flip it so the moisture could get out into the air (I usually do not get to do that sort of thing).  But then it was time for me to hop down from the big Orange Tractor and head to the house to prep some things for the rest of the day.  A day we hoped would be frenzied but good.  I had asked Dirt before I headed back to the house if he was sure the hay was okay to bale, bale too soon before the hay has a chance to cure and at best you have moldy hay, at worse you have a burned down barn because of spontaneous combustion.

So I got schooled again in judging the hay.

No, this isn’t Dirt crying, he is just telling me that first you pick it up and feel it.

Then you bend it to hear it crackle, with just the right amount of crackle.

Then you look at it and see that the yellow and the green have a good balance.  It takes a few times and a lot of attention to get the feel for hay.  It is another thing that shouldn’t be done just ‘cuz the calendar says so.  But sometimes the grass is ready but the weather isn’t.

Back at the house I kept prayin’ for Dirt’s hay crop, I figured it was time to go see if they needed the truck and trailer for pick up so I walk out through the woods to the hay field.  It was a dark sky I walked under, the clouds were not looking favorable.  And then I began to hear the drops on the forest canopy, like being at the bus stop in the rain.  by the time I crested the hill to see the two men leaning on Larry’s truck talking it was a definite rain. 

From my vantage point it looked as if they were in good spirits, havin’ a good chat.  When I arrived in talking distance I was told that just as the baler was ready to pick up and bale the hay Dirt saw the black cloud comin’ that was now overhead.  So the decision was made to stop and wait for the weather to settle.  According to the seven day forecast that would have been today, this evening.  And baling could resume Thursday or Friday depending on how quick it dried back out. But it was definitely not going to be that day because we were now slowly getting soaked through. 

Dirt lightheartedly pointed out to me what I already knew, in all our years, we’ve never had rain on our hay, not when we helped other folks with their hay that we bought a portion of and not once we started doing hay out back with Dale.  This was a first.  It would be this year.  The year of rain.  Now the forecast has added tomorrow into the rain and tomorrow evening as well, oh, and with partly sunny skies on Friday followed by rain on Friday night and Saturday.  A week laying cut?  Dirt is takin’ it in stride, it is what it is.

And so more belt tightening is in our future as we will either need to supplement at a greater portion or replace our whole hay crop with someone else’s entirely. 

Glad I picked up an inexpensive little camera on Monday, even that ‘hunderd bucks might not be there after this week, as Dirt, Bet and I continue to farm “under the water line”.

Go see what the others have (they’re on my side board) for under water.  And yes, now that I have a camera again there will be pictures of you know whats!