Farming is hard work

Haying is definitely HARD work….

The hottest days of the summer is when hay is ready to go into the barn. This year is no exception. We often have to get hay in under the pressure of potential rain, which can ruin good hay in the field. This year we are getting second cut hay the first of July, earlier than ever before. We got the call from our neighbor that he would have 300 bales ready for us on the 4th of July. Weather reports suggested sunshine for the next 4 days.

Normally we hook up to a hay wagon in the field, pull it to the barn, count the bales as one tosses them out of the wagon to the barn floor, one loads them on the hay elevator, and two stack them in the hay loft. The wagon can hold over 120 bales per load, and there is only one wagon. Once that is empty we go back and load the bales left on the ground into the wagon for the second and third loads.

So we arranged for two boys with strong muscles to help us move the hay elevator from the pole barn to the main barn and come back around 6pm, avoiding the worst heat of the day. We cleaned and organized in the barn to facilitate the hay transport process. And we went to a friends house for a holiday gathering. As we were heading home from Buckfield it started to sprinkle. Nooooo.. This can not be. And we had to beat the rain. Maybe it won’t rain in Sumner, we said, checking out the overcast sky.

..And when we pulled in to the driveway we saw the hay wagon at the barn door it was not raiding and the neighbor had brought the wagon over, and he with our 2 boys were already unloading hay likety -split. We got that first 130 bales in and went back for the remaining 180 bales of first cut hay for Bubba (the draft horse) and for the goats.

The next morning we headed to Wilton to help bring in second cut hay for friends who have Shetland sheep. It was a beautiful morning and a pretty 45 minute drive seeing huge fields of blooming potatoes, some fields of corn, and big beautiful barns. The hay was stacked in a wagon that we pulled up beside.

Loading wagon to truck, and wagon to trailer went very quickly for the 4 of us and we loaded 120 bales and were on our way home within an hour. Much easier than loading out of the field. We are storing this batch of hay in the north side of our barn for them since we have plenty of room for it. Then back to the field for another load, this time second cut hay for our sheep. Second cut hay is said to be better nutrition for pregnant and lactating ewes. We then had to move the hay elevator from the big barn to the pole barn and by 6 pm we were unloading the last of the hay into the pole barn. It was still hot, we were dripping with sweat, and pushing to find the energy to keep going until we were done. Haying only takes us a few days, and they are always very hot days of very hard work.

Yesterday morning we got an early start separating the boy sheep from the girl sheep. Because it promised to be one of the hottest days of the summer we started at 5am transporting 2 boys from here and 3 boys from Buckfield to Otisfield and taking 4 girls back to Buckfield. Early in September the girls will be ready for Lester, the Border Leicester to come courting . If it takes 2-4 weeks for the girls to cycle we can hope for lambs in February next year. (We don’t want any unplanned babies come December.)

We actually have sheep at 3 locations right now….here, Buckfield, and Otisfield and we are fortunate to have people willing to provide our sheep good care and lush pasture. This arrangement gives the sheep plenty of high quality pasture to graze while we work to improve our pastures here. Moving sheep involves lifting lambs into the back of the truck. We realized they are getting big. Mamas are even heavier to lift. When we are moving a crowd we set up a walkway and ramp so that they can walk into the truck. The trick then is getting them to stay there once they are in. We actually had very little trouble this time and was glad we could do it in the cool of the early morning.Mid day Mary Ann went to treat a lame goat and realized her foot was in awful shape...way worse than we thought. Food scald is fairly common when pastures are wet and relatively easy to treat. We treat foot scale with a liquid application twice a day for several days, and that’s it. Foot rot is something we don’t like to see, but it happens occasionally. This year has been particularly challenging. For that we trim off the dead and damaged hoof, which is softened by the disease and treat it with a green paste applied with a gauze wrapped in place with vet wrap. This is what we were prepared for. But what we found was a very bad case that had become infested with maggots as well. Yuk! So we cleaned it up, flushed it out with antiseptic iodine, and flushed it clean with a spray water bottle. We will give her antibiotics to help her fight the infection. It will take time, but she will mend.