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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Putting up the timothy hay.


First day of cutting.  William takes his dad some cold water.  Brad is cutting the timothy grass under our circle.
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We bought a dicsbine to cut the grass.  We are retiring our old swather....well it kind of retired its self.   Brad is the one who cuts the hay, but here he's off enjoying the refreshments we brought him.
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Before it's baled, it's fluffed up with a hay tedder.  With alfalfa we rake two rows into one.
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Hot dogs.  It was too hot for the dogs.
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I can't stand up for long because of my injured back, and desperately needing to get out of the sun, I sat with the dogs in the tall timothy.  I leaned against the circle wheel and my feet in the deep wheel track and it was rather nice till I panicked when I heard the tractor coming.  I forgot I was safe against the circle wheel as I struggled to get to my feet.
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William is the one who does the baling.  The timothy was as tall as me in places and made huge windrows.
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Brad operates the tractor picking up the bales and William drives the truck.  They had about 30 loads.
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William took this photos for me.  I'm so glad I wasn't there when this happened!  Brad was putting a bale on the top row of the trailer and it rolled off and landed on to the top of his tractor!  It's a jolly good thing the tractor has a strong cab or else it would have ended bad for Brad.  The bale weighs over 1100 pounds!
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It looks like cows are going to be eating this hay in Japan!  I hope they enjoy it.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Wildairo and Echo have visitors.


A few mornings ago I was up early taking the puppy out, when I saw something that gave me a fright.

On our driveway, the bit that disappears over the rise then down to the road, I saw three dark large shapes.  Without my glasses on, my imagine ran wild.  Our cows are light colored, so it wasn't cattle.  My worse nightmare is the two mustangs escaping.  But it couldn't be them because there was a third dark shape with them.  I always think outside the box and so I wondered if it wasn't the two mustangs with a moose that happened by.

I told Brad to take a look.  He said it looks like horses all right, but couldn't tell which ones it was.  It was William who informed me he could see Wildairo safe behind a fence.  Great relief!  He would be he hardest one to get back in.

I have another ruptured disk, along with all the nerve pain that goes with it.  I have been scheduled for another operation...yuck.  I felt pretty helpless.  I told Brad and William if Echo was out, I'd get my hiking poles and try to get to him.  No one else can catch him.  As it turned out our mustangs were behaving themselves and it was a neighboring horse and mule paying them a social visit.
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Brad and William gave me a full account of what happened and Brad took the picture above for me from the public road looking up our road.  Horse and mule trekked down from the hill that is seen behind them.  They have a 300 acre pasture back up there.  The mule was one of Foxsun's old friends.  Back when Foxsun had the run of the place, while out on a hike, I saw him off in the distance, visiting with the mule over the fence.  Once the cows moved off, he left the mule and ran off to join his cow herd.  Foxsun's had his own social circle unknown to me.

Echo chatted with the escapees for a while and after he failed to impress them by spinning yarns about his days as a wild mustang, he walked off in a huff to go back to Dandylyons.  Horse and mule then went to pay Wildairo a visit.  When Wildairo couldn't be bothered to lift his head from his breakfast, the horse reached over and gave him a hard bite on his bum, which made Wildairo squeal and run off.

The owners came and got them in a stock trailer.  They told Brad that both horse and mule are in their 30's and retired.

I took these pictures of Echo some weeks ago when I got around better.  I was trying to take a picture that just wasn't of his breathing holes.  I kept trying to move around him.  He was a bit muddy.
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He's finally reached the stage where he wants to be worked with.  The other day I took Dandylyons across the road to graze and when I took her back Echo wanted me to put the rope over his nose......maybe hoping he'd get to go across the road.  So I did and he like it.  When I walk with Dandylyons along the road people slow down and smile.  It must be funny seeing a cow going walkies, but I'm so used to her I forget the oddity of it.  Here's Dandylyons doing some yardwork.
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Still trying to get a good picture of Echo.
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For the first time in about 8 months, Echo had his halter on.  He held still like a good boy and was really happy when I led him about.
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