Making Hay

To the uninitiated, making hay doesn't seem like a big deal.  After all, what's so difficult about mowing a big field, letting it dry in the sun, then driving a baler over it and making bales? 

Anybody who thinks it's that easy, I want your phone number so I can have you come help in about a month or so when it's time for second cutting!

What's so hard?  Mother Nature.  Heat. Humidity.  Rain that messes up your plans for cutting hay.  Rain that ruins your partially dry hay.  Schedules imposed by the "real world".  Heavy, scratchy bales that prick your arms and wear out the denim on your jeans.  Dust.  Sweat.  Sore muscles.  Perilous footing on the wagon as it moves around the field behind the baler.  Perilous footing up on the stack as you are hefting hay toward the rafters inside the barn.  The hay elevator that breaks somewhere around bale 120. . .

Mostly, though, it's gambling with the weather.  You're never one hundred percent sure what you'll get there.

Last year my first cutting had two nice days drying in the field.  The third day it was still too moist to bale.  The weatherman said we only had a 30% chance of rain that night.  So, we decided to let it dry one more day.

That night, it poured for hours.  And again the next day.  And, if I remember right, it even rained some more on the day after that, just for spite.  The  hay had to lie in the field for about four more days once the rain stopped, before it was dry enough to bale.  What ugly bales those were! Washed out, coarse, yellow things. My horses did eat them, grudgingly, but I had about 300 bales more than I needed.  Selling them for enough to cover the cost of cutting and baling was difficult.  Finally, on some, I took a loss just to get them out of the barn and make room for this year's hay.


Understandably, this year I was gun shy with the weather.  When the weatherman said 30% chance of rain, I considered it 100%.  So, my hay got cut about 10 days later this year than last year.  I was sweating it when, on the third day after cutting, the weather forecast suddenly shot from "sunny with 10% chance of rain" to "isolated thunderstorms".  This Spring, isolated had meant it would rain at my house, but probably not six miles away in the village.  We started baling hay, breaking tradition by going from the inside of the field (where the hay happened to be ready) to the outside (where it was still rather high in moisture). 

Half an hour into baling, I realized I was not going to be able to make the 4:30  blacksmith appointment I had for that afternoon.  With clouds filling the western horizon, getting hay up before it rained was more important.  I called the blacksmith to reschedule, knowing he would understand.  After all, he'd rescheduled on me just a few days before because he was putting up his own hay.

After almost 400 bales, it started to sprinkle.  The four or five outer windrows still had not dried down enough to bale without them ending up moldy inside.  So we called a halt to baling and concentrated on emptying wagons into the barn.  Of course, that's when the hay elevator decided to break.

After spending 20 precious hardly wet minutes fussing with it, we pulled the elevator back up into the loft before the sky decided to open up, and tossed what bales we could up by hand.  When the person on the wagon tossing hay could no longer see the loft, let alone reach it, we switched to stacking hay in the lower portion of the barn on pallets.

Wouldn't you know that five minutes after we pulled the hay elevator back up  into the loft (no easy feat in  itself), it quit sprinkling.  Once the third wagon was unloaded, half the hay up in the loft, the other half down on pallets, we were done with hay for the time being. We had a real dinner that night, instead of an exhausted hurry-and-grab-something-anything-meal that usually follows an afternoon of putting up hay. DH, who'd had afternoon meetings at work and couldn't come home early to help with hay, lucked out entirely.  We were done for the day before he even left work.

That night, it didn't rain!  (Although 10 miles away in town it poured.) And the next morning, it didn't rain.  In fact, it was the most sunny, windy day yet!  The outer windrows dried.  We baled them that afternoon, while DH was at work.  We put them in the barn with all the doors wide open so we could enjoy the cooling breeze while stacking hay.  DH lucked out again.  But really, I felt like the lucky one.  596 bales of primo horse hay.  230 of which I all ready had sold practically faster than they had come out of the baler.  A very good first cutting indeed.  Makes me wonder what I'm in for with second cutting; surely I can't get so lucky twice in a row! 

I mean, we are talking about making hay here.  ;0)

Ready to cut.

Cut.

Raked into windrows.

Done!

People are Funny

This is our 11.5 yo German Shepherd. 

 DD2 caught him with the camera the other day. 

I think he looks like he's enjoying a good laugh. 

 Probably at us.

It's a Thousand Little Things

Recently, at DS2's graduation open house, we got many compliments on our property; how nice the lawn looks, the lovely flower beds, the great view, the large garden, the chicken area, the barn. . .

Which made us all who live at this little place here step back for a moment, and look at it not through the eyes of us who see it day in and day out, but by the eyes of a newcomer.  Yes, it is lovely, and we are quite blessed to be able to have this little place here.

On the other hand, back to the eyes of the workers/caretakers, and it's a lot of effort that goes into making this little place here such a wonderful place to be.  It's a  few gargantuan projects we have undertaken, but mostly it's a thousand little things that we do, day in and day out, that keep it so appealing to others when they only see the outside, and not the inner workings.

It's:
designing and building the house  --designing and building the barn --designing and building the portable chicken coop --designing and installing the paving brick walkways and patio

pulling weeds from between the paving bricks
grading the driveway regularly

planting flowerbeds --weeding the flowerbeds  ---dividing the perennials when they get overgrown ---deadheading the flowers so they keep blooming  ---collecting seeds to plant elsewhere or in future years

planting an asparagus bed --planting a strawberry bed --putting 100s of stakes in rows and planting the garden --tilling the garden --weeding the garden --watering the garden
picking strawberries --picking mulberries--picking blackberries
making jam

harvesting the garden --canning veggies --making sauerkraut --making pickles --blanching and freezing veggies --dehydrating apples and strawberries  --digging potatoes and sweet potatoes --pulling onions and garlic --storing vegetables in the cellar and basement

planting 100's of trees; the ones that line the driveway, the ones in the yard, the ones making a screen at the road, the dozen fruit trees in the 'orchard' --pruning the trees --removing dead trees --harvesting the small amount of fruit from our orchard and the larger amount from the wild apples in the woods

cleaning the chicken coop --bedding nest boxes --collecting eggs --letting the chickens out in the morning --shutting the chickens in at night --regularly moving the coop to 'fresh grazing' for the chickens --feeding & watering the chickens --scrubbing waterers and feeders --raising broilers in the brooder until they are old enough to go out into the portable shelters --moving the broilers daily --butchering broilers --plucking --gutting --cutting up and packaging for the freezer

picking rocks from the hayfield and yard before seeding --seeding the hayfield and yard
mowing the lawn ---whacking the weeds
cutting hay --baling hay --putting hay up in the loft --selling the excess hay we don't need for feeding our own horses

cleaning up storm damage --cutting up downed trees in the woods for firewood --hauling in the firewood from the woods --splitting wood --stacking wood --stoking the outdoor wood boiler six months of the year --cleaning out the ash bin --spreading ashes

tapping trees in the late winter --collecting sap --hauling in sap --boiling sap for syrup
mushroom hunting in the spring  --deer hunting in the fall --scoping out deer all year round --putting up tree stands --taking down tree stands --clearing shooting lanes --building blinds --maintaining blinds (hinges, doors, roofs. . .)
field dressing deer --hanging deer --skinning deer --quartering deer --deboning deer --cutting steaks and stew meat and jerky --grinding burger --making sausage --putting 100 pounds of deer in the freezer
cleaning guns --target practice --teaching the children gun safety --storing guns

cleaning up the fencerows --covering yourself from head to toe in order to battle the poison ivy vines in the fence rows

maintaining the tractor --maintaining the tractor implements: back blade, box blade, loader bucket, tiller, mower, posthole digger
maintaining the lawn tractor --the push mower --the weed whacker
maintaining the log splitter --maintaining the trailers

washing windows --changing screens and storms seasonally
sweeping the porch --sweeping the patio --sweeping the walkways --shoveling snow off them in the winter


PHEW!!  And we haven't even touched on the indoor cleaning!  It's a thousand little things, it's spending more time standing or moving than sitting.  It's a life of using your body as well as your brain.  It's a good kind of tired.

We do sleep well at night, usually.  Last night we had the windows open to let in the cool night air, and sometime after midnight I woke up to hear coyote pups yipping somewhere off near the woods.  Other nights we are wakened by coon dogs baying in their hunt, or deer snorting on the edge of the yard.  Those are sounds not everyone gets to be woken up by.  I'm grateful that I am.  :0)

Garlic

Last fall, I ordered and planted 2 heads of garlic.  Inchelium Red was the variety.  It was an experiment, as most things begin at this little place here. 

The line of thinking went something like this:  I want to grow garlic.  Can I grow garlic?  I'll choose a variety seemingly suited to my climate and taste, and give it a try.

Inchelium red, according to the tag that came with those two heads ordered from Seed Savers Exchange last year, was found growing on an Indian Reservation in Inchelium, Washington.  It is a softneck variety that produces 12-16 cloves per bulb and was rated the best tasting garlic by the Rodale Institute in 1990.

Sounded good to me. 

I planted those two heads, clove by clove, in rows in one of the terraced beds behind the house.  I mulched them with some hay that was too moldy to feed to the horses.  I laid chicken wire on top of the mulch to keep the chickens from scratching it --and the garlic cloves-- up (pesky chickens!  One of the hazards of free ranging.)

Then, I waited. 

Winter came.  I hoped the garlic was snug down in the ground under it's layer of mulch.  I hoped it wasn't too cold, or too wet, or too dry down there. 

Spring came, and I anxiously awaited shoots to show me the garlic was alive.

They came.  I was elated.

The shoots grew. 

They grew through the chicken wire at an alarming pace, making me worry that if I didn't remove it ASAP I would somehow ruin my garlic harvest trying to take the wire off of fully grown plants.  But how to keep the darn chickens from scratching for bugs and worms in the mulch?  Scratching chickens could decimate my garlic plants in a matter of minutes.

A conversation with a friend reminded me of a little blurb in Mother Earth News I had read during the winter about someone who took an old trampoline and turned it into a chicken tractor.  I looked out the window at the trampoline in our backyard.  The very trampoline that, the summer before, DH and I had declared off limits to our children because the stitching on it was old and rotten and a few of the springs had fallen off.  The trampoline that was no longer safe for it's intended purpose.  The trampoline I had declared I could not and would not resew to make into a safe trampoline for our adult-sized children to play on. (Just the thought of all that hand stitching through thick stuff made my fingers ache!) The trampoline we had been discussing "What To Do With", which is the discussion usually had before something leaves this little place here in the trash bin or with a "FREE" sign taped to it out by the road.  I knew what to do with that old trampoline now!

I bought a roll of chicken wire and some cable ties.  I 'fenced in' the underside of the trampoline, except for one section which I snugged right up to the chicken door of the coop.  Voila!  A portable chicken run to go with my portable chicken coop to keep my lovely but pesky chickens from digging up my soon to be planted garden and my garlic.

Happily, I removed the chicken wire that covered the mulch on the garlic bed.  The chickens were happy in their shaded, moveable run.  No longer free ranged, but pastured!  The garlic could grow freely.  I could relax.

I watched, as spring turned to summer.  The tips of the garlic leaves turned yellow. The necks turned from green to brown, and the plants leaned precariously over the mulch.  Was it time to harvest?


This morning, I decided, it was.  Tentatively, I grabbed the neck of the first garlic plant and gave a tug.  Up it came, out of the soil, out of the mulch.  A beautiful, round, white head of garlic!  Looked done to me.  So I pulled up the remaining 20 plants.

What a glorious sight!

Garlic curing in the air. 

I'll take the 4 or 5 largest heads and plant the cloves from those this fall for next year's garlic crop.  We'll eat the rest.  YUM! 

I think I'll also peruse this year's catalog from SSE and see about getting a hardneck variety to add to my new found garlic growing passion.

Cuteness

Free Wood!

When we first bought this little place here and began building it from a bare farm field and 10 acres of woods into a homestead, we considered putting in an outdoor wood boiler.  We had all that wood, so why not?

Well, because if we heated solely with wood, we would have to never go away for a weekend during the winter or our plumbing would freeze!  Either that, or we'd have to have two heating systems: the wood one and another (oil, propane, or electric) that would be a back-up for when we were out of town.  The construction budget was rather tight, so putting it two systems was not feasible at that point in time.

We went with a propane boiler instead, and used that exclusively until we got a great deal on a used wood boiler about four years ago.  So now, if we want to go away in the winter, we can let the fire in the wood boiler go out, and just flip the switch to turn the propane boiler on.  The propane boiler also heats all our domestic water in the 'non-heating season' (During the heating season, that is done by the wood boiler--'free' hot showers!).  For the last three winters, we haven't paid hardly a cent to heat our home.  And we haven't needed to cut down any of the trees in our woods, either!

How have we done that?  Well, it took a little time and some talking to people, but now we are known as people who will come with chainsaws and haul off any downed limbs or dead trees you have.

At first, DH talked to one of the neighbors who had had some oaks lumbered off a few years prior.  The tops of the oaks were still laying in this neighbor's woods, and DH asked him if he was going to use them.  The neighbor said no, and generously offered us all the tops we wanted to cut and haul away.  For the last four winters, we have spent a few weeks each January cutting tops in the neighbor's woods.  We still haven't cut up half of what is out there.  And, being oak, the wood is still solid even after about six years of laying on the ground.

Then, in October of 2007, a tornado went through the town 8 miles north of us.  We knew several families who lived there and had trees fall in the storm.  The day after the tornado, DH showed up with his chainsaw, offering to help.  He not only cut up and removed trees for those families, but also from dozens of their neighbors.  Many of those people gave him the wood for his assistance in cleaning up the downed trees, saving them the expense of hiring a tree service to do it.

A few of the people he met during that time have contacted us now and again about removing trees for them after other storms.  Some of the people DH works with have heard him talk about cutting wood, and have offered him their own unwanted trees.  Friends of ours who had too shady lawns call us up when they are contemplating removing a few trees to let more light into their yard.

DH has also answered ads on Craigslist about hauling off wood when people have had land cleared of trees for landscaping or building purposes.  Last year he got 8 trailer loads (16' utility trailer) of oak from one person that way.

This spring, there have been several rounds of strong storms go through our part of Michigan, and again, we have sprung into charitable clean-up.  Most people don't have a use for the wood, so offer it to us in exchange for our assistance in getting their yards back to normal.

At this rate, we'll never have to cut down a living tree (or useful dead snag) in our own woods.

Calendula

It came to me unexpectedly, in an 'annual flower' seed mix that, I think, was a freebie with a vegetable seed order back in 2005 or 2006.  Just starting a flowerbed behind the garage at the time, I tossed the contents of that free package onto the soil and lightly raked in the seeds.  Mostly weeds came up, but I did get some statice and some very robust looking calendula.

The statice evidently didn't set enough seed that year to ever come back in subsequent springs.  The calendula, however, did. 

 And did again.  And again.  Now I have so much calendula that it's taking over that flowerbed.

 It's pretty.  It's sunny looking.  It grows really really well. It blooms profusely from June until a hard freeze somewhere around Thanksgiving.  And, supposedly, it has a myriad of uses, from cut flowers to herbal salves to tinctures to skin toner to tea to dyeing wool or fabric.  The petals are edible, and I recently read they can be used as a substitution for saffron.

Sounds like I have a great opportunity for some more experimentation here: learn how to use calendula!