Chopping Hay

Yesterday went well........the longest day of the year was perfect for putting up hay.........low humidity, sunny skies, warm temps. Because of the bright sun, some of these photos are shadowy.......so, if you can't see them very well, remember, you can click on the photos to see them in a much larger size.

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The hay chopping process got started right after morning milking chores. Coming up over the hill in this photo is the tractor pulling the chopper and silage wagon. The tractor on the right, going in the opposite direction, is raking swaths of alfalfa hay into winrows to be baled later in the day when the dew has dried.

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Here's a closer, dustier view of the chopper moving along, gobbling up the swath of hay and blowing it backwards into the silage wagon. I love dust billowing in photos.........it indicates motion and noisy activity going on!

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The wagon became full before the end of the hay swath, so Husband had to pull away from the row and go to the end of the field to wait for an empty wagon.

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Here's the wagon full of chopped hay......or "haylage", which is a yummy delicacy for dairy cows!

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Husband and today's Birthday Boy are switching the empty wagon for the full one. B.B. will take the full wagon to the silo to unload it. (At some point today, Husband managed to slip off the chopper and fell hand-first onto the ground, wrenching his thumb backwards. Its very unusual for him get injured. His thumb is swelled up and painful; he's calling it a sprain.)

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Husband directs the chopper back to the next row of hay.

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Sometimes I can offer a tiny bit of assistance, by doing something as simple as putting the hitch pin in place. It saves the tractor driver a climb down from the cozy cab.

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Birthday Boy monitors the flow of haylage from the wagon into the blower which propells it up the chute into the top of the silo. The spinning PTO shaft is there in the lower foreground........every farm kid learns early on to be very careful when working around that dangerous piece of equipment.

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More green dust! Yippee!! I could probably gather some up and steep it in hot water to make alfalfa tea!! The chopped hay is moving out of the silage wagon, into the blower, and up the chute into the top of the silo. The silo stands next to the barn, and has an unloader which throws the haylage down another chute to be fed to the cows inside the barn as needed throughout the coming year.

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Here's a silly little thing that makes me chuckle.........we have two identical Meyer silage wagons, which we purchased in the same year. They each have trademark signs attached to them. On ONE of the wagons, the word "manufactured" is spelled wrong!! The sign on the other wagon has correct spelling! Trivial, I know........but, it makes me chuckle every time I see it!

"Manufacured"!!!

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