OUR hay...

[BrokenolMarine]

Our friend and his wife baled three fields today, some 600 bales. We have had a barter agreement with them for the last couple years. THEY have racehorses. No cows. We have the milk cow(s) and calves off and on. They have teenaged kids. We provide them with lots of milk and fresh churned butter. They provide us with the hay for the livestock in the winter. Win/win. We would never be able to use all the milk or butter we were getting from Miss Molly.

Today, the wife dropped nine round bales in the ditch beside the house.

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Miss Tina picked it up and moved it to the barn for storage until we need it this winter. WE have lush pastures right now and the livestock is fat, dumb, and happy. If you look close, you can tell Miss T has a bit of a tude in this picture...

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Slow and careful, our little Kubota will handle the two bales, one front and one in the rear. Low gear, and slow speed.

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Yes, the flags DO need to be replaced. That Oklahoma sun and the Wind Whippin' down the Plains does a number on them pretty quick.


Nine round bales, five trips.


Worth it, it's up and stored.

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[BrokenolMarine]

There....

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We always order the National Ensign and the Marine Corps Colors in sets, and I have Miss T order two sets at a time. When we use the last set, we'll order two more sets of each. Well, time to order a couple more sets, but don't they look good now?

[dave77]

How much do those round bales weigh? Looks like one would last my 2 goats for quite a while although they did go through 10 - 75lb bales of grass hay last Winter.

My friend that I share the pasture and paddock with raised 2 meat cows one year and I was amazed how much hay they ate over the Winter compared to my horse.

[RanchRoper]

Look like around 1100+ lbs give or take.

[BrokenolMarine]

Miss T said the bales are about 1,000 pounds, perhaps a bit more.

[daytime dave]

That's a pretty good arraingement you have there Marine.

[BrokenolMarine]

Miss T questioned the package I set up when we moved to Oklahoma. "Do we REALLY need pallet forks?" But we have used them almost as much as the bucket. I added them specifically to use for the building of the berm, but she has used them for various things delivered ON pallets, to move things we have stacked on pallets, to pick up and stack downed branches from trees around the farm... They work great to move round bales and allow moving two at once. The hay spike on the rear and the pallet forks on the front. We also purchased a custom work platform that fits the pallet forks. Great for safely painting, construction, cleaning gutters and more.

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[RanchRoper]

That work platform will give you a great seat at the Santa Claus Parade....

[dave77]

Got 10 bales of nice grass hay for the goats yesterday, second cutting for $15 a bale. Took me over an hour to unload and stack it. Might eventually have to pay one of my young neighbors to stack it for me. Only 70 lb. bales, I don't think I could have managed the 100 lb. alfalfa bales I used to get. Getting old sucks.

[BrokenolMarine]

I wouldn't have minded getting old, if I wasn't broken. But the life I led had risks and they led to breaks... but it was exciting and I enjoyed it, so I look back and wouldn't change a thing...

[dave77]

I'm not broken, some mild arthritis in my hands and a fake knee that doesn't really bother me but I'm paying the price of smoking for 48 years. I can still do most of the work but need very frequent breaks to catch my breath. Stack one or two bales and sit down for a few minutes, same with weedeating, do 10 feet and then sit down for a bit. I recently weedeated our irrigation trail, what used to take me 20 minutes took two hours. Also have to do stuff early in the day or later in the evening, when it gets above 85 degrees I'm worthless.