Hay, hay, hay… Making Hay…

If you have read this blog for a long time you would know that a few years ago we met some really great people who have a farm in the Shenandoah Valley. We stopped by their little piece of paradise and gave them a hand in helping hay their farm. Well here we are two years later and the call for help came once again and since we were only about 250 miles away we went ahead and headed north to their farm. We had planed to make one or two more stops before visiting them but with haying the weather gods tell you when it is time to hay and when it isn’t. So we made the long, for us, drive of about 5 hours and pulled into their farm.

It is just as beautiful a place as we both remembered and it was great getting to see our dear friends once again. We last got to see them in San Diego when they were visiting the area and we happened to be nearby. That was a fun time in San Diego but this time is will be less fun and more work as I planned to help Jerry get his haying done. He fertilized this year and has an abundance of hay.

Once the hay was cut it had to be tedded and raked and I was going to do the tedding on the two largest fields. After the hay is cut it starts to dry and it needs to be worked to promote curing. Tedding the hay fluffs up the cut hay and allows the air and sun to assist in this important drying process. It is a slow and tedious process but eventually I had all the hay tedded.

Then Jerry ran the square baler and a hired hand ran the round baler and put all the hay into bales. Once the hay was all baled the only remaining work left to do was to get it all off the fields and staked into the barn. Fortunately for me Jerry had hired some young bucks to stack the hay as that is pretty hard work. Last time I helped by driving a flatbed trailer around behind a tractor while Jerry skewered round bales with a fork lift and stacked them on the trailer. This time there was lots of hired help to get the hay out of the field since it was supposed to rain Sunday afternoon. So all I needed to do was stay with the square baler and help out when it needed to be re-twined or to when the when the baler would screw up.

  

Since we were cutting along the Shenandoah river I was able to get in a little small mouth Bass fishing and caught quite few on artificial baits and even caught two fish on one cast…. Who would have known that I would be able to mix in a little fun during the haying process. Once the hay was all stacked for the day we had a wonderful dinner that Sharon made and then a few celebratory libations were shared…

There is still some hay in the field that needs baled and stacked out of the rain so we are not sure what the weather gods will allow us to get done but we shall see… Once we are done haying and visiting our friends we will likely head on towards Pennsylvania and find a place to stay for a while.

Making Hay…

When we first met Jerry and Kathleen in Key West we knew right way that they were good people. We had a really great time with them while we were in the Keys. Jerry mentioned that sometime in August he was going to the Shenandoah Valley to hay his farm. We mentioned to him that we were going to be in the area about the same time and that we would love to see their farm and we offered to assist with the haying chores at hand.

  

Well we hooked up with them a few days ago and got directions to their place and drove the 40 miles over to their spread on the other side of the river and mountains from the state park. The drive over was unexciting till we got closer as the road narrowed a lot and we hoped to not see any traffic for the last two miles which of course didn’t happen. After maneuvering around low limbs and tight roads we made the turn into Riverside Farms which was tight… real tight, but we squeezed in and managed to turn the rig around and found a nice spot along the fence line.

About an hour later Jerry and Kathleen arrived and we all had a good time reacquainting ourselves and reminiscing about the Keys. We had planned to stay in the motorhome but they insisted we stay in their house. The house is rented by the week as a vacation spot. The main house has 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and can sleep up to 16 people. This makes it great for wedding parties, bridal showers, family reunions and other large gatherings. If you know anyone interested in renting a place as grand as this let me know and I will get you in touch with Jerry. The views from the second floor deck are stunning as can be seen in the header photo on top!

The next day Jerry was going to rake the hay that had been cut earlier by a hired hand that rents a house and horse stable on his nearly 200 acres. The land is split by the Shenandoah River and goes halfway up a mountain side. The top half of the mountain is national forest so the views will always be unspoiled. The hay was too thin and amply dry so all that need to be done was the raking to get it ready to bale.  So after helping attach the raker to the tractor I watched as Jerry prepped the hay for baling.

 

While the raking was being done I walked from the barn along the Shenandoah River back to the house just enjoying the views and taking photos along the way. Later the baling for the round bales will done. After Jerry finished the raking the hired hand ran the baler and later I followed Jerry in a tractor while he stacked the round bales on the trailer behind my tractor. We had a grand time helping make hay in the Shenandoah Valley…

 

Since it looks like Jerry doesn’t need our help any longer we will head on towards Pennsylvania tomorrow and find the next place to stay for a while somewhere in the middle of the state. We talked with them about meeting up again in the Keys during the winter and we know it would be a blast to run into them again. Thanks again for the hospitality Jerry and Kathleen!!!