Hay Day (Part II)

Hay Day actually should be plural since it took us two days to complete our task this year.  We went and picked up 90 bales of Bermuda hay in our neighbor's field, paid him, and transported the hay back to our house, which is approximately 1/2 mile away.  We unloaded it and stacked it and made 5 trips back to his field.  The following day (today) we will load the hay into Russ' truck and drive to our barn and store it up in the hay loft so it is protected from the weather.

Since we don't have to leave our property, we loaded Russ' pickup truck extra heavy.  The red truck was sitting down pretty low in the driveway with all the weight.


Heavy Load!

We backed up right next to the barn and I climbed up into in the loft and opened the doors.  Benjamin was standing on top of the stack of hay in the back of the truck and was only four feet lower than the hay loft doors.  I attached a pulley to the 4 X 4 that is positioned above the loft doors.  A rope with a bungee cord with two hooks on the end is run through the pulley.

Hoisting Hay

Benjamin's job is to hook the hooks on the end of the bungee cords to the two pieces of twine on the bale.  Once attached, I pull the rope and hoist the hay bale up into the loft.



Pulling the bale up into the loft

But let's back up and you can see the whole process.  First Benjamin attaches the hooks on the end of the rope to the bale of hay.

When it is attached, he gives me a signal and I begin pulling the hay bale.

Benjamin helps a little bit.

When it reaches floor level in the loft, I pull the bale inside.

While I slide the hay bale to the back and stack the hay three bales wide by four bales high, Benjamin begins hooking the next bale up so it is ready to be hoisted by the time I return.  I learned quickly to watch my head as the loft is only five feet high.  If you aren't careful, your forehead will bang right into the numerous 2 X 4 beams in the loft.

By the time we were finishing up, the sun was setting and we experienced a beautiful sunset from the loft.

All was not peaceful and beautiful, though.  This poor frog apparently got himself caught between a rock and a hard place last year when I last opened and closed the loft door.  His flat, mummified body testifies that we should always be aware of our surroundings.

Flat Frog

Here is a photo of the hay loft when we are about halfway finished stacking the hay.  The hole in the floor is the trap door.  A ladder is directly beneath it.

And here is a photo when we've finished putting 90 bales up in the loft.  You can see the top of Benjamin's head as he climbs down the ladder.  We actually have to climb through a little tunnel to get out.

You can see how tightly the hay is packed into the loft.

Finally with the job done, we close the loft doors.  Magnolia and little Bully show up to eat the hay that we dropped during our hay hoisting activities.

Cleaning up the leftovers

Like the ants in the Ant & the Grasshopper fable, we got our work done in the summer and didn't 'fiddle around.'  Our cows will reap the benefits of our labor this winter.  For now, we'll go take a shower.