WC Weekend Accomplishments....

Mission trip

Jerry Gibbs

Spent prior week on a mission work trip at Red Bird Mission in SE Kentucky. Main project was a new floor, tub, commode, and lavatory in a trailer home. The area is depressed and was gratifying to help.

Thanks to Facebook.

Mark Nowicki

Got together with an old classmate and his wife.

Last time we saw each other was in 1971, in Lagos, Nigeria.

I

Hey, or hay

John K Jordan

I don't know if Monday counts as weekend but I this afternoon I hauled, unloaded, carried, and stacked 6000 lbs of hay. I was already tired after days of preparing and teaching a lesson for 75 kids at the church for yesterday. Now I'm tireder.

JKJ

Re: Hey, or hay

Hank Knight

Slinging bales of hay around with a hay hook is exhausting work. I've done it more than once - when I was much younger.

Re: WC Weekend Accomplishments....

Don Orr

We helped fire the wood kiln at the clay center overnight Friday into Saturday (it starts on Thursday) then went home for a short nap and cleaned up and went to our club's annual lumber & tool auction. I did not buy anything.

Whitewater kayaking on Sunday. It can be a very spiritual experience when you roll up after capsizing and bouncing your head (helmeted) on some rocks.

Re: Hey, or hay

John K Jordan

Hay hook, what is that? I do have one, great for pulling off the top of the stack or from too far to reach in the truck bed. I usually push off the trailer to unload, stack on a cart to wheel down the length of my storage building for stacking (8x8x40' shipping container). I stacked 80 on Friday after moving the older hay to the front and 150 yesterday - that little building will hold almost 300 bales.

I'll be 70 before too long - I figure someday when the effort and cost of caring for the animals finally outweighs the entertainment of the animals it is time to sell this place and move. I've thought about moving to the beach but starting to change my mind...

I used to get compressed bales on pallets but that operation closed down last year. That was great: pick up a pallet with forks on the tractor and drive the tractor into the container or barn!

JKJ

Re: Hey, or hay

Hank Knight

Back in the day, a tractor drawn trailer would move along a line of hay bales behind the bailer. I'd to walk beside the trailer, pick up the bales from the ground with a hook and hoist them onto the trailer. Or sometimes I'd ride the trailer and grab the bales with a hook from the ground guy and stack them on the trailer. Then to the barn to unload and stack. A day of that works up an appetite! I was in my 20s then. I'm 73 now, and I can't imagine doing it again! Your compressed bales on pallets sounds like a much more user-friendly system!

We used to buy cubed alfalfa...

John in NM

But we only had a couple of milk cows so the big hard cubes were no problem for them and the premium price was well worth the ease of handling (50# bags) and the fact that it kept forever and mice didn't nest in it. Those were a couple bucks more than a good two string bale of alfalfa as I remember, so you paid a bit more an got 10# less.

Wouldn't do if you have more than a few mouths to feed of course, but sure was a convenient way to go.

Re: We used to buy cubed alfalfa...

John K Jordan

I use cubed and pelleted alfalfa but only for a couple of special animals - a nursing llama mama and her constant companion, another llama partially disabled from a bout with meningeal worm parasite.

JKJ

Re: We used to buy cubed alfalfa...

John in NM

Yeah, one or the other of our cows was usually milking, so we just fed both the same. Usually about a medium bucket full or slightly less (say 5#) then they got grass hay as filler. Best thing for the grass was to buy 2-3 large rounds and let them out to eat those during the day.

First read that as 6,000 bales

Dick Coers

Since I was always paid by the bale, I never thought of hay by weight. Started out being paid 1 cent a bale, working in the barn, as a young pup in the early 60s. Thrilled to have $10 at the end of a big day!

Re: First read that as 6,000 bales

John K Jordan

This was 150 bales - I estimated the weight. So far this year I've bought about 450 bales of a variety of grasses.

I do prefer to buy hay by weight but none of the producers around here do that now. A bale can be 60 lbs or 30 lbs - I got some once that were so light, probably 25 lbs, I could lift one with one finger. AND the hay was worthless. AND the guy shorted me by 10 bales. When I bought compressed bales on pallets they were sold by the ton - it was expensive but high quality, lab tested, and I knew exactly what I was getting.

I used to cut hay on my own fields until I fenced them for pasture. One year I sold hay out of the field for $1.50/bale, 1st cutting. Then a drought hit that year and by winter time I had to buy hay at $10/bale. And it was awful hay!

JKJ

Re: Hey, or hay

Ron Pemberton

I worked a ranch in my high school years. They had alfalfa fields where we bailed square bales. A trailor was pulled behind the bailer and as the plunger hit the bail you could use the momentum to help throw the bale to the back of the trailer. Once in awhile they would bale a snake. You could throw that bale about 25 yards.

Re: Hey, or hay

Hank Knight

I can imagine throwing a snake a long way!