22 years ago today

It really is hard to believe 22 years have passed since we said "I do". 
I guess there is some truth to the saying "time flies when your having fun!"

I do have breaking news! As of 5:30 last night we finished with getting our hay in !!! Yesterday we managed to get 562 bales off the last of the field. With the help of three boys, Cody,Joe , his brother Nick and some help from Rob's wife a powerhouse turbo charged Porche (I mean, if she was a car) Nola.
We put up about six wagons of hay in just a little over three hours.

Remember that empty loft I showed you a while back ?



please note the light bulb at top right of loft.



no room left in main loft , so started stacking in the side loft.

so , lets see...what else have I been up to you may be asking yourself ?
Well, the posts are set for the new pasture/horse turn out/young dog training field.

Still need to set the H braces and gates as well as the woven wire fence .

I've also been brush cutting.
Since we moved here I had a pasture roughly three acres on the east side of our property that was going wild. Blackberry and my Nemesis, Multi Floral Rose were getting a foothold in it. I had been a little leary of it because it was somewhat of a steep rolling field. I have a healthy respect for machinery and it's limitations. Rolling a tractor is just not that high on my list.
Yet it was really starting to irritate me to see land I could be using , but hell it was so overgrown I could not even get TO it .
So I said screw it, lets just try and see how far I can get. Now I will admit , I had a few "pucker" moments while I was reclaiming what is ours but in the end a huge satisfaction to have grabbed this land back from my prickly thorn encrusted Nemesis.



brush cut path to reclaimed pasture

Also finally got around to setting up the sheep handling equipment I bought last year!

We will have some tweaking and modifications to what we have set up right now, but as I mentioned to Paul at least we know how it goes together the next time!

  

Other than that, same old.

Had my friend Lori come up a few weeks ago to borrow some puppy sheep for her next hopeful, Anna. Same way bred as her Matt who she is doing so well with.

My friend Maggie was up Tuesday to visit and work her young dog Strike (litter mate to Rush and Flint) on out flock. I video taped her work sessions for her . Strike looked great.

So now, I need to get back to a little training of my own. Have been doing work but not managing to train. I am seeing that I have been letting some little things go, because I just want to get 'er done. Older dogs can be forgiving of this but I see a little slack in the younger ones. Got lot's of spaces and stock to mess about so will get back to sharpening up a little sloppy handling ! It is after all my fault , not the dogs.

Finally I'll leave you with a sunset from the other night. While having this farm causes me not to be able to get away often, there are so many times I think to myself  "now why would you want to ever leave" ?

hey (hay) there.....

Those of you who follow this blog may be wondering whats been going on here at the farm ?
Well, we have been struggling with getting hay off and put up for winter.

We started out haying on 7/20 just as a heat wave was cresting in our area. Great for drying hay , not so much for those of us putting it up in the barn! It was up in the hundreds outside

Inside the barn offered little relief if any. Just as hot, no wind to at least wick off the sweat .

The first day we managed  280 bales in

Day two we got  an additional 534 bales put up.

Then the weather just would not cooperate and was threatening to, or delivering rain so we were not able to cut and bale again until the 26th.
At least the weather broke (well sort of, it was in the 90's now instead of  100's) and more hay was cut

At the start of this cut we were to have at least three days of sunshine. Then Mother Natured thought she would have some fun and give me an Atomic Wedgie  . 

We managed to get 120 bales put up off the smaller field but the other section of the large field was still just two damp. Rob baled a turn or two and brought it home to be fed straight up to Nola's horses.

Day three was looking to rain in the afternoon and in an act of despair Rob handed me the reins over to his tractor and I worked at getting the hay rolled over and dry while he was at his day job. 

I took 'ol Betty Ford (that is the name of the tractor) around twice that day and got the hay good and dry.

We would have pulled it off too, had we not had an equipment break during baling. All that effort only to have the tongue break between the baler and the hay wagon!

We got 80 bales put up that were in the wagon and Rob raced home to weld the piece back together. Then the rain came. For about 30 minutes it just poured . Why I could almost hear Mother Nature cackling with laughter over the thunder. The witch.

We lost a good three ton of hay that was left out there.

Rob came back with the newly welded part and a rainbow arching over the hay  field as we were hooking things back up.

Ha Ha Mother Nature, your so funny. NOT!

Rob cut more hay on 7/30  and we sold it straight off the field to Nola, managed about 385 bales that cut.

We were going to cut today but again the weather did not pan out, nor does it look good till early next week.

So we have this stacked in the barn, just around 1000 bales

and guessing there is around 500 or  more out there waiting.

In addition to haying we are working on a fencing project. Paul has all the corner posts sunk and part of one fence line the posts are set.

I have not done any training per say with the dogs , but have been pairing up one young dog with one of the older dogs to bring sheep out to E net and again to bring them back to overnight pasture. So other than a little guidance from me they have been just working and figuring things out on their own.It has been a nice break for me too. I also find it interesting to look at the different pairings of dogs and how the work together to get the job done.