I’m a hayseed, for sure

Hay means a great deal to us on our farm.  It is the food we put by for our cattle, who are very important to us.  They provide us with meat, milk, nutrient rich manure, leather, and tallow for soap, cooking and candles. (I haven’t made candles yet, but I still save my tallow.)  In addition, they help us maintain the landscape that my grandparents, maternal and paternal, worked so hard to clear of big timber.  AND, we like them and their antics.  So, we try to take the same care with their food as we do with ours, and besides, we are severely anal retentive so we pay attention to details.

My maternal grandfather, the blacksmith, on the mower.  ca. 1925  At about this time he had to learn the way of cars and started transitioning his blacksmith shop into a gas station and mechanics shop.

This is the same field we made hay in this week.  It doesn’t look much different,  except the church was demolished by a storm.  My grandmother had donated the land for the community church, and when the circuit riding preacher no longer would come, she bought back the land and the building.  We used it to store hay, and to hold the neighborhood fall butchering in.  The pulpit was the stage where I let made my dogs be in plays.  Of course, no one watched, but it was fun anyway.

We’ve progressed a little, but not too much in the hay technology department.  This sickle bar above is about 4′, powered by two horses.  We are using a 9′ haybine with a 40 horse tractor.   Why not a bigger tractor and more equipment?  First, we don’t want the debt, since we aren’t doing that much hay anymore anyway.  Secondly, this tractor has just enough power to cut the hay at the right time of the day.  That sounds funny doesn’t it?  What difference does it make when the hay is cut?  Well, you know that sweet smell everyone loves about hay?  That is the Brix content you’re smelling.  The sugar reserves in plants go down to the roots at night, about when the dew comes on here, and the hay begins to get “tough.”  When the hay gets tough, it’s too hard to fight it, you just can’t mow it without plug-ups, also we usually have dew early in the mornings and it’s too hard to cut at that time also.  So, we have to cut when the sugar reserves just so happen to be the highest.  This makes better hay.   Another one of those little subtle little facts that get lost from one generation to the next.  If we had a higher horsepower tractor and a disc mower, we could blow through the grass like no tomorrow.  But, fortunately for me, (and the cows) my folks didn’t fall for the “get big or get out theory.”  Our equipment is older, and paid for, and works just fine, and if it gives up the ghost it’ll be easy to replace it without breaking the bank.

I was imprinted in the hay field.  Natural Haymanship, you might call it.  I really think my Mom just sent me with my Dad and brother to the hay fields, just to keep me from being underfoot.  ;)  OK by me.  I learned a lot in those early days, since we did custom haying.  By time I was ready to get out of the berry fields at age 13, I was primed to work for my brother in the hay fields.  The pay was much better, plus I got to drive, even though it was just a tractor, and I got a great tan, too.  It was customary to do hay on shares, which meant we took half of the yield for the cutting, raking and baling.  I learned some nuances about hay during those summers.  It was in the early 70’s and our area was just starting to change over from farms to fields being chopped up into hobby farms.  My brother had learned from my Dad how to do hay, so you could turn out a quality product.  It isn’t (shouldn’t be) just tall grass, that is baled.  So we brought home the best hay, and sold the rest to people who wanted hay and weren’t too concerned about quality. (I do the same thing for potlucks we go to, where the people don’t care if something is organic or not.  I buy regular butter and supplies for those meals.) 

What makes good hay?  I would have to say, hay that has been fertilized with animal manure, or composted animal manure, which favors forbs and different types of grasses. Petroleum based fertilizers, and municipal crap bio-solids stimulate the growth of the grass, making it tall.  In theory, you get a higher yield, but what you really want is quality and diversity in your hay.  High nitrogen chemical fertilizers drive clovers and other leafy herbs out, which is the last thing you want to do.  Sadly, the hay makers in our area now, don’t own livestock and are just concerned with yield.  The more they fertilize, the more tonnage they have to sell.  They never touch a bale, and they never see a cow turn up its nose at what they are being fed.  We have bought hay from time to time, that the cows refuse to eat.  It looks green and palatable to the human eye, but the cows won’t touch it.  The worst offender is sewage sludge municipal bio-solids.  So, I have to go with the cow’s preference.  The price is the same, whether it is good or bad.  So in our continual quest to idiot-proof our farm, we try to make sure we don’t have to buy any hay, or pay someone to do it for us.  I know that seems harsh, to some, but we have just had to jettison cargo on some of the people we deal with.  Whether it be a butcher, or the numb-nuts at the feed store who repeatedly dumps a ton of feed off of the front of the forklift, and then expects us to haul it home that way.  Farming is too hard, why make it harder.

 And here is the disclaimer, if you are buying hay don’t feel bad, at least you’re farming, and if the time comes that you have hay ground, or want to take the leap maybe some of this post will help.  I’m just ruminating about the what and why, that works for us. 

Haying time, is cross your fingers time, in Western Oregon.  We want at least a week of dry weather ahead of us, so we can get it cured properly and in the barn before it rains.  Some summers we have months of dry weather, some though, making haying  is a challenge.

How can we tell when it’s time to cut?  We want good hay, but we also want to leave some seed behind, to reseed any molehills or just to keep the deposits going the to “seed bank.”  That’s old time logic that gets lost on the “hay wadders” in our area.  Some of the cool season grasses have already set seed, and the understory is leafy and green, a good balance. 
This photo below shows red and white clover still blooming, but some has set seed.  This is the stage we like to see.

 

A hay seeded mole hill.  This covers any bare ground with seeds of desirable grasses and clovers, instead of just weeds.

 

After the grass is mown, it has to dry to a certain degree before it is raked into windrows.  This helps the hay dry and consolidates it for the baler.  I had the teenagers job of raking for my brother.  It’s a no-brainer when the field is flat and a reasonably rectangular or square shape.  But, in our region the fields have to fit the contours of the geography and are most likely to have obstacles in them.  The land is also steep in most places, having been cleared by hand and team.  I was scared in some fields and would tell myself that my brother had just been over this very same ground, so it’s safe right?  Dragging a light hay rake behind you is not stressful at all, try a heavy haybine or baler, my brother had nerves of steel, so getting pushed or dragged to the bottom of a hill was his cup of tea.  I would have wet my pants!  But I’m a girl.  Our neighbor that we used to get standing hay from, one time remarked to my husband, that we must really enjoy doing hay at his place because of the view.  View!  Who has time to take in the scenery when you are mowing hay?  You have to watch and listen to the machinery at all times.  And look out for “surprises” that non-farming people don’t even think about, and leave in their hay fields.  Sometimes you don’t see these things until it is too late… .

 Also each field dries differently, there is usually a grove of fir trees nearby, giving that portion of the field only morning sun, whereas, some other areas get dry and burnt up from full sun from sunrise to sunset.  When you start raking, you have a clean slate, this is the time to straighten out kinks and wows to make it easier for baling and then picking up.  Also depending on the heaviness of the yield, you can single or double rake, and in the case of the the thin field  we did last week, most of that was quintuple raked.

Raking with a dump rake, ca. 1920.

 This picture shows the field partially baled.  Since we are doing the hay ourselves, we can let the portions of the field that aren’t completely cured, dry out a little longer, and skip ahead to baling and hauling.  The outside row always dries last, since there is less air circulation and the center of this field was cut a day later.  Hay put up too damp, or with green portions can spontaneously combust.  This usually happens AFTER you have stacked it nice and tight in your barn.  If we had someone doing our hay, it would not pay the custom guy to be so nitpicky, so it would have to wait until all of it was dry, which would lessen the quality. 

Baling

 

To ensure that our daughter would learn about hay, we took her to the hayfield with us since she was born.  Here she is in the back swath watching her Dad mow the neighbors field with the “awesome view.”

Now she enjoys doing this.  I don’t know how long this phase will last, but I’m not complaining.  She loves to stack hay.

Besides keeping an eye on her in the mirror, I have to look ahead and beside.  Good way to get a farmers tan, with my arm hanging out the window.

Do this

Then this

Until you get this, then repeat many times.

Just a liitle more advanced than this.  What a difference 30 years can make.

My dad on the load,  ca. 1920   In the days before Photoshop, I hand tinted these old photos with oils, after having negatives and prints made.  Very expensive.  I’m hoping to get Photoshop for my BD or Christmas.  hint hint

We bought our hay loader from a neighbor, who purchased it from a farmer who used it with his draft team.  It hooks to the side of our truck and picks up a bale at time.  This enables just two of us to pick up a fair amount of hay.  Small square bales are a lot of work, but we believe they are better quality than round bales, which may contain preservatives, and are hard to handle without larger equipment than we have.  It’s hard for the equipment companies to stay in business if they aren’t selling you something bigger, better, new and improved.  My brother bought the tractor we are using now when it was new.  We had it rebuilt cheaper than buying someone else’s problems. 

 Some people swear by the round bale concept, and to tell you the truth, I wish I could just make a weeks worth of meals and feed my family that way.  (”Here you go, a one ton block of lasagna, now don’t step on it you guys, while your eating.”  “Never mind that moldy old taste in the middle…”   It might work if I could keep the dogs out of it!  TEE HEE )  Square bales work for us, I want my kid to be able to feed the cows without getting out the tractor, and I want her to learn, she has to see what the cows are eating, not just fill the feeder for a few days and call it good.  She’s good - I can quiz her on which part of which field a bale came from and she can tell by looking.  She also knows if the hay is better quality, the cows will need less, and if it is poor, they will need more.  This year she picked out the hay for her horse and my milk cow, they get the best quality.  (We agreed with her choice.)  My cousin makes fun of us “boutique” farming, but he’s stuck living in DC working for the IMF, you tell me who has the better job. 

Back to the hay process

The hay can be baled with a small amount of moisture, if you salt it.  Loose hay used to be put with more moisture, because it was loose, not tightly compacted in bale form.  We don’t salt all our hay, just the hay that needs it.  It probably makes the hay taste good too.  The cows don’t say.

Chaff and seeds on the truck bed, swept up and bagged makes a great chicken food supplement, reducing waste.

All this is done under the watchful eye of this lady.

And these two scalawags.

We like what we’re doing, and have no desire to compete for the biggest calf, most hay, or most powerful tractor.   In this day and age, we have the choice to choose from many technologies, it is up to each farmer to decide where they want to draw the line.  I enjoy milking my cow by hand and hoeing my garden.  Is that the right way?  Not for some, but for me it is.  Sometimes it isn’t about the end result, it’s the process that brings the enjoyment.