When I got to the farm on Friday the starlings were thick in the tress. Not sure if they migrate or not, but they were all flocked together and chattering away like crazy.I scraped up the last of the bale to distribute. I'm pretty sure this particular bale was made up of hay from along the road edge, as T said he's pulled a bunch of flattened pop cans out of it. I found a toothpaste tube, which confirms my road-edge theory. The hay itself is lovely, but odds and ends of things (and dust removal) is one reason why we shake the hay out before feeding. T said when he was farming he knew guys that would eat their lunch on the tractor and just toss the wrappers back into the baler. Bleh.
The horses got a new bale yesterday - no signs of trash in this one. I'm always amazed by how how bad a round bale can look on the outside, and how beautiful and sweet smelling the hay is once you peel off the strings & outer leaf.
The feeder calves & replacement heifers that G's keeping in the grain bin lot all clustered close - they've learned that when we feed we always throw anything the horses leave in the tire feeders as well as the outside & bottoms of the bales over to them. They aren't as fussy as the horses - they actually like the "caramelized" stuff, and they sleep on whatever they don't eat. Not much news this week. It continues to snow and next week they're saying cold. I don't know if the flocking starlings are a sign of spring, but it's quite definitely still winter!
6 comments:
It is amazing that round bales work so well to keep the inner hay beautiful.
I certainly hope the starlings have some secret early warning of spring. I think we're all ready.
I am hoping that the birds are a sign. Here we saw several large flocks of geese. Any sign will do for me. :)
Hi, SunnySD!
I enjoy the pix and notes on country life. I hope you'll keep blogging!
I also hope you'll call your legislators about a couple of bills—HB 1277 and HB 1278 that could make blogging too expensive for you to continue. If you have time, check out these bills and my explanation of why they're bad for all bloggers.
I've been using the outer layers of the rounds to try and build a "bed" for Sonny to get out of the mud. Yik!!
We used to be "all about" square bales- tell you what though- after finding some guys down here who bale and store rounds inside, I'm hooked!
My husband lost his cell phone baling one year. Whenever we would change the round bale, we would kick around what was left hoping to uncover the cell phone. Not that it would work, but kind of a scavenger hunt of sorts. Never did find it...
I love the smell of the hay in the wintertime. Although the round bales are grass, we have alfalfa in the hay loft. When the barn cat comes down from the loft, I pick him up and enhale it. Smells like summertime!
It dropped from 27 degrees this morning to 6 degrees at noon. What is up with that??
Crazy weather! And we're just now hitting the heavy snow months. Yikes!
You know I was a confirmed square bale girl - couldn't figure out why you'd want to feed something that looked so terrible to horses. But if they're put up right, they really do shed water and there's something to be said for not hauling bales every day!
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