Making Hay

Today is the first day of a dry stretch, and we're finishing up making hay for the year. We'll probably skip doing a second cutting later in the year and let it stockpile for the cows. They can eat grass off of the ground cheaper than us baling and feeding it to them later. This last cutting of hay should fill our barn completely and we'll have some overflow. Johnny cut the hay today while I did all the feeding. It took a little extra time because I had several rabbits needing nesting boxes and some that had kits last night needed extra attention. I also had to separate some of my Tennessee Redback rabbits that I'm growing out for breeding stock. They are getting bigger and needed some extra cage space. Johnny got all the hay mowed in the length of time it took me to feed - - he was mowing wide open. I also cleaned out my guinea pig cages today. One of the cages contained a sow and her five pigs. They are getting bigger and next week will be old enough to wean and separate into the male and female baby cages. Before dinner, we tettered the hay because it was so thick. We needed to spread it out evenly in the field to dry. We plan on round baling it on Friday afternoon. Our son, Andy, is working 10 hour days this week and won't be able to help so I'm be recruited to haul hay to the barn using the little tractor. This tractor can't double stack round bales but it can be used to move it to the barn while the other is baling. It speeds up the process a great deal.