What I did yesterday and the day before and the day before that and for 20 summers before that...

I have been making hay while the sun shines. Actually I've been picking up other people's hay and my helper has been mowing and raking and baling all by himself. In the evenings I go to our fields and pick up what has been baled during the day.
Yesterday I went to help a friend (kid who used to work for me) who was making 14 x 18" two tie bales. They don't stack as well as the large three tie bales that we have been making.

I figure we will have to go back to small bales for the horse ladies but I sort of hate to. Later in the day I spoke with the farmer who is a friend of his family and was supposed to help the kid stack but had problems with his stacker. I offered to help him stack if he was broke down. He said he wanted to teach the kid some sort of lesson in getting stuff done. I asked what sort of lesson the kid was to learn? He had asked for help a week ago when he started cutting the hay! I guess the lesson is to not call your neighbor but to call someone who charges you to stack? I'm probably not going to charge him money but I'm going to trade for beef or something. But, we do stack for other people to supplement our income and so actually try to have a schedule. He called, I said I'd do my best to get his field stacked. And I did it. 2860 little bales in 16 hours. 40 some stacks. Not sure of the hours. It was a long drive down highway 18. Traffic was horrible on the weekend.

I had a large BBQ sausage from a roadside BBQ stand while waiting for traffic to clear. It was good.

Traffic was not so good. On the way back I started smelling smoke. Some hay dust on the exhaust manifold. I figured it I stopped it would flare up and disturb folks on the way to the beach. I saw no sparks so I figured I was ok. When I turned off the highway I pulled into a gallery parking lot and raised the bed. No huge flames so all is well that ends well. The gallery owner came out and we discussed picking up hay and traffic.

When i got to my field there didn't look like a lot of bales. But the field was rough and the next field was wet. It took me till 10 p.m. to get caught up. Sometimes I hate hay. I should be able to bale more than 60 acres in a week. Of course we did a few other things as well.
Then I got stuck.

Three times...

I still have another 30-40 acres to bale. I think I am going to drop a few acres and concentrate on this one farm. I hope I don't have any landlords reading who will build up expectations and then realize I don't get stuff done.
Monday I need to bring up a load of rock and a culvert or find a new entrance to the field. I've got two more fields I can't get at.
But, the people who haul my hay want to do it Monday. I suppose it will all work out in the end...
I need to do a bunch of mowing just to clean up fields. Not, to bale or anything. I just don't get stuff done...