Posted By FarmerJ on July 14, 2009

With all of the unwanted excitement around here, I’d forgotten about the fun we had the day before the shop fire.  Winston and Spanky had a play date in the Back Forty ~ and the results were splendid!

We refer to the Back Forty as the approximate five or so acres behind the back slough.  The slough runs through the farmstead like a dissected “S”, so it feels like we have two ‘rivers running through it.’

Anyway, all the discing and brush-hogging Darling Husbie did to the weeds back there last summer has really made a difference.  To our welcomed surprise, there is actually a very pretty pasture area with a perfect mixture of alfalfa and prairie grass.  Horse people get excited about this, because straight alfalfa is too rich to feed the horses and they have to mix it with hay anyway.

On Father’s Day, Husbie fired up Winston and made short work of cutting the pasture mixture.  Three and a half days had passed, and the windrows had dried quite nicely.  We knew the rain was coming, and it was time to get the alfalfa baled and stacked cozily in the security of the barn.

Now it was Spanky’s turn to have a little fun ~ it was time to make that baler come to life!  (By the way, you can view a few miscellaneous videos of Winston, Spanky and the baler on our Seat Time page.)  The baler is an amazing ~ and frightening, to me ~ piece of machinery.  There are so many exposed moving parts, and they move with a definite purpose.  You do not want to get tangled up with the baler.  [Shudders]  For that reason, we are not comfortable having Husbie operate it alone ~ especially while completely secluded in the Back Forty.

So, while Husbie and Spanky tackled the operation of the heavy equipment, it was my job to follow behind on foot and reposition any alfalfa mixture left behind ~ the grass was very tall and wet when Husbie cut it and it had sort of fallen out of the windrow, making the row wider than the baler.  By now, the sky was making deep rumbles and growls every now and then.  No time to lolly-gag around, for sure.

Meanwhile, the boys were having a bit of their own fun.  Don’t ask them, though, because as teenage boys, they’d deny working on the farm could be fun.  While Lovie and I were busy making new bales, the boys were using Sampson (thankfully spared from the fire because he is parked in the attached garage!) and the big carry-all basket to transport some of last year’s reject bales up front for us to use as mulch in the large garden plot.  It’s hard to see in this photo, but Dominic is driving and Daniel is sitting on top of the bales in the basket.  Yep, a couple of real farm boys we have there.  Heehee!

When all was said and done, that little pasture produced 20 small square bales ~ approximately 70 lbs each.  No too bad for an area that was nothing but 6-foot weeds and pure nast last summer, huh?

Darling Husbie and the two ‘Pecs of Steel, aka the boys, made short work of stacking the bales in the barn ~ and not a moment too soon, either.  By the time they got back up to the house, these beautiful clouds had pushed their way overhead…grouchy and grumbling all the way.

A productively fun day with a picturesque ending on a serene summer evening on the Midwest prairie.  There’s a lot to be said for that.  ♥

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