Just another day at the farm

My disk mower self destructed again... Only have 80-90 acres of hay to do. Found a neighbor to help me-I think.
The hay we picked up in the rain is going to mold in the stacks as it is wet on the edges.
Came in the house to discover there are plans for the last weekend of July and first weekend of August. This is why I never plan things in advance. Antique Powerland has been at the same time in July and August for 30 years. I guess I didn't actually get it on the calender. It is basically the only thing I plan on attending in advance. I like to take my daughter. Last year it was too hot. Perhaps I'll see if the nephews are going.
It is much easier if you just work all the time.
I think I will go to bed...

Since you really don't want to hear about my personal annoyances here is another robot doodle

I have always like Robots. I once read a book called "Runaway Robot," it was a good book. I had the book at my old house but I can no longer find it.
I am not so sure why the Robot theme. I drew them a little at a time. One would expect a robot to play techno but these are actually playing Bonaparte's Retreat.

.. After this I do have a Robot playing fiddle but perhaps I shall save it for another day. Now I am off to grind pig feed. I'm sure this will be very enjoyable as I know everyone like the nice itchy feeling of barley dust down the back of your neck in 75 degree weather!

Sometimes I get bored chopping silage

I was cleaning out my tractor cab and found some relics from last silage chopping epic. Snickers wrappers, Farm Show newspapers, random scraps of paper with phone numbers on them, pop cans, and so on.
When I'm chopping I hate waiting for trucks to come back from the dairy for another load. I like to keep busy. While waiting I greased the chopper, sharpened the knives, washed my windows, read Farm Show magazine,  and then I started doodling on a pad of graph paper I found in the cab.
Here is one for the banjo players. It needs a caption. I do not know what inspired me but I drew Robots.

For some reason I had a lot of trouble sizing the picture to fit the blog. I hope someone will tell me if it appears too large.
That thing in the lower left hand corner is supposed to be a Robot Chicken. It didn't turn out so well... This is more of a washing-machine engine powered Robot. i'm not so sure about the whole concept.

Rain

We baled another 675 bales. Half of them got rained on. I stacked them anyway so the neighbors wouldn't see them setting in the field. I think they will mold.

Farm life

It is 6:57 a.m.  I just checked the weather for the 10th time today. Weather.com says it will start raining at 3 p.m. I have known them to be wrong, but...
We have 15 acres of hay to bale today. It is a very small amount in the grand scheme of things. We do 20-60 acres fields on a regular basis. But, it is some of the nicest Timothy hay we have. I have no idea if we can get it raked and baled and stacked by 3 p.m.  There are also six very nice blocks to be hauled home.
The corn could use the water.
I guess I'll just pick up my scaffolding peg and go to work... 25 minutes to go...

Why my daughter will throw me in a resthome when I get old

I tell my daughter she is my favorite. She replies that is because she is my only daughter.
She helped me chop silage last week as the lovely and gracious Mrs. Budd E. Shepherd was still teaching. The daughter (who we refer to as "Lulu" in this blog) was finished with school several days earlier.
We generally had a good time. We sang silly songs and discussed if the surrealistic life of the Lazy Farmer on Happy Daze Farms led to the dadistic interpretation of farm life as expressed in the blog of the same name. It was her opinion that applying a term such as dadistic (which I didn't even know how to spell) to this blog was a tad pretentious and a more apt description would be, "undisciplined, and grammatically challenged ramblings," and if big words were to be used in the description, perhaps "didactic," although "cheap sentimental and pedestrian moralizing," would probably be more accurate.
Actually, we did sing silly songs and she spent a little effort trying to get the truck driver to take his teeth out, which we find quite funny.
It was nice to have company.
Although, I have a hard time not messing with her head.
In the photo below we have had a major hydraulic failure. A hose blew out and we lost about five gallons of hydraulic fluid. She wanted to help so I let her pump the fluid into the tractor.
I bet her she couldn't pump five gallons of oil into the tractor in less than a minute. Usually she says, "show me the money" when I make bets with her but this time I told her that her boy cousins were wimps and couldn't do it. So I set the stopwatch on my phone and away she went. I gave her lots of encouragement as I leaned against the tractor tire. She actually did it in a minute and a half but I lied and said it was 58 seconds. Now I owe her an ice cream.
She is the best daughter ever!

I love Ashes Cafe and pie, but I kind of hate hay...

Today we attempted to bale hay. We had 20 acres cut in like five different fields. There has been a lot of dew in the mornings and the grass hay just does not want to dry. The ground is also wet and so it soaks up moisture from under the windrows.
We cut Monday and made narrow windrows so the ground would dry out and because I knew we would not be baling until we finished silage. Thursday we tore the windrows apart with a rotary fluffer. Friday we did it again as there were wet spots.
Today we raked 11.4 acres just outside of Amity. I intended to do more but people came after baler twine and chicken feed this morning and then we had to work on the irrigation pump. My helper fluffed the field with the rotary tedder. We set it to make windrows.

At 3 p.m. I double raked the windrows and at 4 p.m. we started baling. We made 110lb three-tie bales.
At some point after 6 p.m. I started stacking. I had to deliver three loads with the stacker. These were blocks of 80 bales.
My brother said the fellow was having dinner at the cafe but would go and unlock his gate for me. I did not want to stop the stacker on Hwy 99W and wait for the fellow to unlock the gate. So when I got my first load I stopped at Ashe's Cafe to see if the fellow was still there. I figured I would hit him up for a piece of pie or a milkshake as long as I was there as I had no money in my pocket.
The farmer was gone but it was suggested that if I wanted a milkshake I could pick it up on the way back. I was going to do that as it would give me an excuse to block 99W with a stacker while I went in to pick up my milkshake as the idiot Amity City manager managed to remove most of the parking in town. (You can get by with almost anything if you have a big truck or a farm vehicle with 4way flashers.)
Alas, I was broke. And so I declined the milkshake offer.
I walked back to Dad's Market parking lot and started the stacker. I looked in my rear view mirror and say the owner of Ashe's running after me with a box. She brought me a piece of rhubarb pie. She said her husband felt sorry for me and thought I should have some pie.
I almost hugged her but I have a fairly large personal distance and the pie did not have ice cream on it.
I was having my usually bad day and the gesture of a large slice of my favorite pie gave me the strength to brave Saturday traffic on a state highway. Brightened my whole week. Plus, it was really good pie. It tasted like it was straight out of the old Betty Crocker cookbook. Old fashioned crust, not too sweet, no Strawberries in it. Perfect!
So, we baled 675 bales. I picked up the rest of the field. There are six blocks of 56 bales in the field and I brought the last load home. The blocks will be picked up with a large squeeze and sat on a truck. A 40 foot trailer holds four blocks.

The bales are checked for moisture with a hand held meter you stab in the bale. We also have a meter that reads the moisture of the hay going through the baler. You can see the moisture as you bale. Judging from the weight of the last stack I picked up last night...the meter may not be working. Or someone wanted to finish the field!

I don't like to work late but I do like task completion
And rhubarb pie...