The Top Ten Things - Haying Edition

Farming in general has a lot of specific seasonal tasks - planting time, lambing time, getting in firewood, shearing time and lots more.  One of the busiest and most taxing is hay season.  For a variety of reasons we use small square bales, not the big round ones.  I've never worked with the big rounds so I can't say for certain but I don't think putting them up requires the same amount of human grunt work that the small squares do.  For everyone who's never been pressed into service baling hay, here's the Top Ten observations about it.

You know it's haying season when:

10.  You're too tired and it's too late to go to the store anyway so supper is Spam sandwiches, heated up leftover mashed potatoes and a bowl of ice cream.

9.  As you unload a wagon it dawns on you that the thump and squeal of the elevator mirrors a Justin Bieber song - "Ba-bee, ba-bee, baby, OHHhhh........ Ba-bee, ba-bee, baby, OHHHhhhhh."  Great.  Now that earworm is stuck in your head every time you unload.

8. You lose track of the days.  Thursday?  It was just Monday.  How'd that happen?

7. After sweating and grunting and working for three weeks you shed a few pounds of flab which is great until you realize this is probably the best you're going to look all year.  Meh.

6.  You wear through the legs of your jeans handling bales are hear yourself sound like the cliche 'old people' - "They don't make clothes like they used to!  This denim is like tissue paper!  It's this $#%&$ stuff from overseas!  When I was a kid you got hand me downs from when your father was a kid and they never wore out....."

5.  You develop a farmer's tan so stark that it precludes you attending weddings, graduation parties, picnics or other public functions in anything other than a short sleeve top with a round neck.

4.  You watch the bale count climb with more breathless anticipation than any presidential candidate gathering delegates.

3.  You drink more iced tea in a few weeks than you do the entire rest of the year.

2.  Checking the Weather Bug app on the phone six times a day and comparing it to both the newspaper's and radio's forecast doesn't seem excessive.

and the Number One way you know hay season has arrived........

1.  You drop your drawers in the bathroom and chaff flutters down like confetti.  Wheee!  Looks like I'm a winner!

We're at 2,920 - just over half way there!

That Fella Over There With The Hella Good Hair

Cotswolds are known for their long wool including on their foreheads.  Other breeds either have clean heads with no wool growing there or poofy, fuzzy wool which just grows in all directions.   With Cotswolds, wool hangs in locks which tend to felt with time and wear into little dreadlocks.  Some most of our sheep end up with so much trash in their "hair" that we just clip the locks off.  They aren't attractive and pose the threat of getting pokey things too near eyeballs.

Neville, on the right, is all Cotswold and has 'nice hair'.  Castillo, on the left, has a small percentage of Cotswold in his background but he got the good hair gene too so I left his on for fun.

Brick, on the left, is one of those boys with no significant wool on his forehead so he gets a buzz cut all over.

Communing with the wild and dangerous rams - Brick (notice he's licking my arm), Wee Guy with his one wee crumpled horn scur, and Castillo.

Just to be funny I put a hair scrunchy on Castillo.  Gives him a Dr. Seuss look!

"Dude!  What's going on with your hair?  Is that one of those 'man buns' that are trendy right now??"

I didn't leave the scrunchy on very long as it was attracting a bit too much attention from the other rams.  I wonder if human guys with man buns get beat up too?  ;-)

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

A few days ago, before the return of winter temps, the newly shorn ewes were in high spirits.


"I is a lamb!  Really!"
And then everybody caught the bug.

"We're not weighed down by wool OR lambs!  Wheeee!"

Who says big girls don't get silly?

Apparently It's Going to Be a Good Year

Because this must be a good omen, don't you think?

 



This makes me giggle every time I think about it.  Thanks, Camaj Fibers, for having a smart marketing department that made my day!

Happy 2015, everyone!