An Exhausting Day

Wednesday I came home from work, and Henry came over to help me put hay up in the barn. I had him put the hay on the elevator, and I was up top stacking the hay. We put up around 157 square bales, and it was hot too. 90+ degrees out with no wind in the barn had me sweating lots. After we finished my sisters and I began to water the garden which now is going to be an everyday thing with the drought we are in currently. I also watered the flower beds, raspberry bushes, and asparagus. Today, Thursday, I went to work from 4:00 to noon and came home and went right up to the farm to get stuff done. I unhooked the wagon from my tractor and pushed it out into the driveway. I then drove my tractor around to the front of the barn and hooked up to the rake in the doorway and brought it out to the yard. I then swept off all the hay and chaff from one of the wagons into a wheelbarrow and fed it to my cows. I used the leaf blower and cleaned off the rest of the chaff on the boards before pulling it out of the way. I got the 784 started and unhooked from the hay elevator and drove out to the loader. I hooked the loader up and got it attached to the 784. I pulled another hay wagon over to the barn and then cleaned them both off. I brought them out to the yard and put them in line with each other. I picked up the front one with the loader and pushed the other one under it. I set it down and then picked the front up and pushed it on. I got the wheels chocked, then I hooked my tractor up to the bottom wagon. My tractor has a plate of steel with a hole in it on the front, so I can hook up to wagons and drive them into the barn rather than back them up. After I put the double stacked wagons inside, I got the 584 started and backed it up to the shop with the IH baler on it. I blew off all the chaff and hay and started to clean it up. I filled water tanks while I did that. I came home and checked on the cows in the pasture and noticed they needed some water, so I got the hoses out and began to fill the tanks. I went up to the house and got 2 new fly trap bags to replace the full ones down here. I try to keep the flys off and away from the cows because last year they got bad, and the cows got pink eye. I got the new ones put up, and then went in the pasture and dragged their metal feeder into the shade, so it would cool down so they would eat stuff out of it. After the tanks filled, I hung the hose back up and took a break. Later dad blew out the square baler a bit more and cleaned it up. I hooked my tractor up to one of the hay wagons and pulled it out to the hill. Mel and Paige came out and threw the hay bales onto the wagon while I drove slowly down the hill. We got the 26 bales on and I drove the wagon back to the elevator. I went through and flipped the bales over, so the side that was on the ground was facing up. The bales that sat on the ground had sucked up the moisture from the ground, so I will have to let them dry before we can put them in the barn. Dad tarped the bales for the night because we have a chance of rain. We could see the rain in the distance falling from the clouds. We unfortunately never got any, but we did get cooler temps. I went up to the farm later and put away lots more stuff and closed up the barns that I could. I fed the cows hay and some grain and then called it a day around 7:30. 

The Day After It was Stacked, It Fell Over

2 Wagon Loads of Hay From Pasture Field in Barn

After I finished Putting Up Hay in Barn

I already hooked the hydraulic hoses up, so all I had to do was get the loader onto the tractor and put the pins in which I dropped not once, but twice, so I had to get off and pick the pin up.