Hell Week is Half Over

Actually it's more like Hell three weeks but this one in particular shaped up to be the worst of them all.

As I said I have about three weeks to get three months worth of stuff done before it gets too cold to do a bunch of the things.

Today I managed to rake the front hay field. Get a small honey pull out of the way. Not a full big time pull, it is rather late to be taking that much honey from my remaining hives, I took just enough to satisfy our needs for the rest of the year. This includes Christmas presents and a few special customers that will just get a free jar now. One co-worker in particular is moving the end of October out of state so I want to send her off with at least a quart.

I took about 120 lbs. worth of frames off the hives more or less. Should be more than enough to get the limited demand of this year taken care of.

Then I jumped on the diesel with the baler still attached and baled the front field since they are now calling for rain tomorrow morning.

I didn't get many bales, only about 27 all told. Last cutting I got almost 50 if I remember right but this is the third cutting and the Johnson grass is taking over that field. The problem I have been having is that the brush hog just doesn't cut the Johnson grass well enough to bale. It tends to knock a lot of it over which in turn gets caught up in the rake and jams up the baler. If things go according to plan however I should not be baling the front field ever again anyway as I plan to have that turned into the South pasture by Spring.

If I remember right, since I didn't keep accurate records this year, I put up about 320 bales all told with this last cutting. I had about 40 ruined by rain overall though. All in all that puts my hay yield at about 100 less than last year. Of course I think by weight I might actually be over last years harvest since I really clamped down on the tightness of the bales this year too. Doesn't really matter because with the remaining retired old nags we are going to have to buy hay anyway so we will have enough.

Market day is Thursday early AM. I took off from work that day and so tomorrow is final sorting day and replacing lost ear tag day. There are still a few yearling and lamb ewes that need to be sorted out of the market group and I need to chose 2 or 3 slaughter lambs as well.

Anyway this day is done and tomorrow is another busy one. I got the bales put in the barn just as the sun was going down and I didn't even stress about the two that broke on me as we have plenty of sheep stuck here and there waiting that none of it went to waste.

After the time sensitive stuff is done the baler, rake and tiller need to be cleaned and put up for the Winter while the manure spreader will see some November use I imagine.

14 more days until breeding season starts and the rams are not wanting to wait.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!