Hay season

It's been a wild few weeks with hay season hitting early and cutting coming late due to rain, rain and more rain.

There were only two of us working hay this cutting. With just over 600 acres, it's been a real job just to get it on the ground and bailed, let alone loaded and moved, but we managed it. We averaged 80+ 4x5 bails per acre this cutting so we really don't need another bail to get us this year, but there's certain to be two more cuttings before the year's out.

I killed my 5x5 vermeer baler AND my trusty old Heston 4x5 variable chamber just on this cutting and had to rent a Massey Ferguson just to finish the cutting. Sadly with such an abundance of hay this year, there's not likely to be any call what so ever for excess, so what little we do sell won't bring much. Looks like hay's gonna leave me in the red this year. I think it's about the only crop you can have too good a season on.

Now for the fun part. It seems everyone who tore their hay equipment up last year waited until time to work the fields this year before having theirs repaired. The first couple of dry days we had, people started popping out of the ether to have their equipment repaired so they could work hay "tomorrow". With nearly a hundred people wanting their equipment fixed all at the same time, several ended up losing hay for waiting too long.

So............ I've been putting in 80+ hour weeks at the shop and still working my own hay. Can I breath now? Please? lol

I'm finally caught up on the balers, tetters, rakes, mowers and conditioners, but I'm behind on all the tractors and other equipment. I can see the light ahead, it's just not reaching me yet.

I 'need' to keep at it full tilt and get it done, but I need to survive too. This year I'm going to let my age talk some sense into me. I'm taking this weekend off.

Don't know if I'll just relax around the house, go fishing, take a trip and visit friends or what I'm going to do, but I know for once I'm going to have to slow down or everyone's harping about the consequences of trying to do too much might just come to fruition this time.

Could it really be that I'm really getting old? I know the calander says so, but all the sudden my body refuses to ignore it. I've even found myself hitting that blasted 'snooze' button in the mornings. Talk about a difficult adjustment!

Last year I could work a couple healthy 20 something year olds in the ground and then go home and take care of my own stuff. This year I can work a couple 20 somethings in the ground and then go home and pass out.

I refuse to admit defeat just yet, but I can't deny that my races are going to have to be shorter ones. You can still look for me at the finish line. You're just not going to have to drive as far to get there.