Hay Making on a Different Scale

[LHF2019]

Has most of your stuff been rained on? Most of mine has.
Won’t stop raining.

None. Of course that is why most is still standing. Down to only needing 2 good days to get it dry now but even that's hard to get.

 

[5030]

Friggin rain here again, today. The way we are going, I'm gonna bale the lawn as well... Wierd weather. My buddy in Indiana is dry and has been.

 

[Hay Dude]

We have had rain for 22 of the last 30 days.
And we have 10 more comin.
Was talking with another fellow farmer in my area and he was surprised I was 3/4 done 1st cutting. He’s only about 1/3rd done…

 

[RjCorazza]

I get stressed out with rain just cutting large rural lawns, without the numerous factors apparently involved in haying.
I don't know how you're dealing with all that rain!

 

[5030]

Got an additional 1/3" last night. Our only slavation is the 'idiot' across the road who has to mow his lawn no matter what... He has rows of what I refer to as 'cud' windrows in his lawn. He's fun to watch actually. Yesterday afternoon he was mowing in the rain but quit when it started thundering. Like I said, thinking about cutting and bailing our lawn as it's about high enough. Hayfields are rank but have to be cut anyway. Lots of fields around here have not been cut at all.

Gonna be an interesting hay supply this fall and winter.

No way even with the crimp rolls set tight you can get enough drying window to actually make dry hay. It's frustrating to say the least.

 

[MichiganIron]

Got an additional 1/3" last night. Our only slavation is the 'idiot' across the road who has to mow his lawn no matter what... He has rows of what I refer to as 'cud' windrows in his lawn. He's fun to watch actually. Yesterday afternoon he was mowing in the rain but quit when it started thundering. Like I said, thinking about cutting and bailing our lawn as it's about high enough. Hayfields are rank but have to be cut anyway. Lots of fields around here have not been cut at all.

Gonna be an interesting hay supply this fall and winter.

No way even with the crimp rolls set tight you can get enough drying window to actually make dry hay. It's frustrating to say the least.

18 acres 2nd cut down, doing nothing but shielding the ground from direct rain. Now rain forecasted tomorrow and Saturday. What a mess.

 

[ultrarunner]

I remember grandfather’s dairy farm nothing was more important than haying except milking…

 

[Hay Dude]

18 acres 2nd cut down, doing nothing but shielding the ground from direct rain. Now rain forecasted tomorrow and Saturday. What a mess.

We’ve been that way since June 15th. Rest of month looks like nuthin but rain.
Cool season grasses are shot. Warm season grasses growing strong now.

I know one thing for sure. There won’t be any hay made in my area that didn’t see some rain.

 

[5030]

18 acres 2nd cut down, doing nothing but shielding the ground from direct rain. Now rain forecasted tomorrow and Saturday. What a mess.

Raining here again. I was going to mow the yard, that's out as well. Sure my Kubota diesel mower can handle it and make lots if clumps.... Hay is rank but least it's standing. Looks like a forest out there... I'll have the crimp rolls set tight and hopefully I can sell it, fingers crossed on that. I really need 3 days to make it right.

 

[5030]

We’ve been that way since June 15th. Rest of month looks like nuthin but rain.
Cool season grasses are shot. Warm season grasses growing strong now.

I know one thing for sure. There won’t be any hay made in my area that didn’t see some rain.

And people that sell it will make the claim... not rained on as well. Strange weather here. The truck farmers have been pulling cabbage and replanting despite the rain. Loads of it going down the road almost continuously, headed for the processing plant at the end of the road, where they pack it and put it in a chamber that puts it in a vacuum and drops the temp and extracts the excess moisture and into waiting semi's with reefers to take it to wherever. End of the road looks like a truck stop presently.

Our road is always littered with cabbage heads that fall out of the Gaylords they put it in, in the field to transport to the processing plant. It's all picked by migrants, same crew every year. All very cordial and actually drive with common sense. I believe the crew has 30 employees. No one around here is going to do the picking, too much manual labor for youngins here to do. Hard work picking cabbage and keeping up with the ever moving conveyor plus tossing the culls. Soon as the field is picked and the ground is dry enough (which this season is a crap shoot at best), the field is fitted, fertilized and replanted. Don't know how it's playing this year as I have not been looking closely.

As a rule, they get 2 full crops.

Unlike normal row crops like wheat, corn and soybeans. cabbage stinks. Not as bad as picked sauce tomato fields, but close. Rotten sauce tomato culls are rank when laying in the sun in a picked field, terrible smell of not limed right away. I quit eating canned tomato sauce long ago, just because of the stink. Least no sauce tomato fields nearby so no stink from them, only the cabbage that comes off the gaylords, lays on the side of the road and rots.

Under Michigan RTF, it's all legal and above board.