It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Autumn

Winston is reaching the age when I will need to trap him in the barn and sell him. It will be a tricky operation, and upsetting for him, for his mother, and for me:

 Blue and Remy have another 6 to 8 weeks in their corral before I can let them loose in the south field. They will be happy to regain their freedom, and I'll be happy that my life will be easier:

 My north field produced a second crop of hay. It was cut, then tedded, then baled. The neighbor did the baling, using the kicker to fling the finished product up into the wagon which was towed behind the baler. His uncle, on another tractor, raked the cut and dried hay into windrows so the baler could pick it up and turn it into bales:

 I love the aroma of hay, both in the field and in the barn. It is also a scenic operation:

I took this photo to show how the baler collects the rows of hay and processes them into bales:

 But there are occasional breakdowns and problems. This stop was to refill the bin with four big rolls of baling twine:

 Flowers were still blooming, so I brought two more vases of them to church. This one contained flowers of Tree Hydrangea, Rugosa rose and Sevillana rose:

 Sunflowers and Daylilies:

I didn't think there would be many apples this year, but like other years, I was wrong. When they began to fall, I was shocked to see there were so many:

 They weren't big, pretty, supermarket apples - but they were good:

 Over on the other side of the house, a Yellow Delicious dropped small apples, and some animal, probably a Chipmunk or Red Squirrel, has been using these old steps as a dinner table:

 The plums began to ripen, but I have learned to wait for them to fall before I eat them. That's how I know they're really ripe and sweet:

Baling Hay And Cutting Flowers

My neighbor mowed half of my north field, but it was tall and thick, unusually slow to dry - so he raked and tedded the field for two days:

I was wrong when I said there had been no baby fantail pigeons to survive. I found this youngster in a nest on a shelf:

Hello, little one. Welcome to the world:

And then my neighbor and his uncle came to bale the hay. The baler has a kicker which tosses each finished bale up into the hay wagon as it is finished:

The uncle's job was to catch each bale and stack it neatly:

Being an old hand at this, he was usually able to direct each bale toward its final resting place, thereby saving himself from needless work and possible injury:

The hay dust was so thick that I itched and coughed for a day after taking these photos. I only got half of the field cut and baled, and the field produced less than expected, so there is much more haying to be done:

And the next morning, the purple Iris began to bloom:

They are indeed a flower of exquisite beauty:

The Bridalveil Spirea also bloomed:

Their tiny flowers are produced in such abundance that they are amazing:

They are also pretty, so I put some branches in a vase with those from the Snowball Bushes and brought them to church. I gave the flowers to a woman from choir when church was over:

Late Summer On The Farm

Grazing is good again because we've had rain. In fact, it's so good that the horses have to wear grazing muzzles to cut their consumption of rich grass and the fat cows are too well fed and lazy to come into the barn for grain:

 The pink Rose Mallows have been blooming wildly for several weeks, and now the red Rose Mallows are blooming. Alas, it appears that there are only two red flowering plants this year:

 They look good together, especially with the neighbors' red barn in the background:

 There weren't many apples this year but you might think otherwise if you had walk across all these windfalls:

 The pear tree produced so much fruit that branches started to break off and fall to the ground. Sadly, one of the larger plum branches snapped under the weight of the fruit also:

 I'd previously cut a lot of weed trees and low hanging branches from the flowering crab trees, so I added the pear branches to the pile and hauled them all off to the brush pile in the woods:

  My north field was already hayed, but the far south field had not even had a first cutting yet. They mowed it and began tedding it, surprised that it produced as much hay as it did:

  There was little clover, but grass hay is just fine for my animals, and it looked pretty good:

 After numerous rounds of tedding and one of windrowing, he brought his baler and hay wagon:

 He also brought his uncle, who caught the hay bales as the kicker tossed them up and into the wagon:

 I rode with him in the wagon for awhile and was able to get the view as he saw it:

 The kicker ejects the bale with great force, sending it up and into the wagon. In most instances, he didn't have to actually catch it, but merely guide it through the air to the place he wanted it stacked. That little field produced 183 bales of hay. I should be all set for the winter, including the big, round bales which I purchased earlier:

Cleaning and Haying In June

The north field (in the background) was filled with tall grass, all ready to be hayed, so when I decided to clean up the cedar branches and old, rotten lumber from my wall repair, I drove to the wood pile along the outside of the fence. That way I didn't knock down any of the soon-to-be hay. It took two bucket loads to clear it all away:

I was wrong about there not being any baby fantail pigeons. I discovered this one high up on a shelf nest where I just hadn't noticed it before. It's a quiet, inactive bird and quite unlike some of the loud, hyperactive babies which have gotten themselves into trouble in the past. Maybe the parents are just keeping it so well fed it only lies there and burps all day:

Yellow Day Lilies began blooming amid a clump of Peonies. They appear every year without any assistance from me except to mow around the clump:

Out in the pasture, I saw these Common Fleabane flowers. There used to be more of them when I first moved here:

 

 We were predicted to have nearly a week of idyllic weather, and one day my neighbor began lining up his haying equipment on my lawn:

Meanwhile, I began brush hogging the pasture. The tall weeds were hiding the horses' heads when I tried to see if they still had their muzzles on. Furthermore, I was spending several hours each day searching for lost muzzles. It took about six hours over two days to get it all bush hogged:

The wildflowers were pretty, but Buttercups were taking over. They are inedible and increasing because they kept dropping seed. You can see here the uncut portion on the left, and a mowed section on the right. The bush hog cuts rather high, so I am hoping it didn't disturb many bird nests:

But let's face it - a wildflower meadow is a beautiful thing. I wanted a photo of it before I chopped off all those flower heads:

Meanwhile, my two neighbors (a nephew and his uncle) began haying, then tedding. Tedding is when they turn over the cut hay to help it dry in the sun. They had to ted it multiple times before they began baling:

And then they attached the baler, followed by a hay wagon. This year he had a brand new kicker, which tosses the finished bales up in the air and into the wagon, where the uncle caught it and stacked it neatly. I had to take a number of photos to get one which showed an airborne bale, but you can see it in this picture, just entering the front of the hay wagon. Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it:

The horses and cattle ignored all the activity and lounged and grazed peacefully in the south field pasture:

The fantail pigeons were enjoying life in the barn. They are sociable birds with each other and also, in their own way, with me. They know where their food, water and bedding comes from:

Around The Farm - Part 2

A neighbor offered to cut and bale my hay this year, making small bales which he would also help me get into the barn. He'd do all the work and take half the bales. I said yes:

He'd hayed the far south field in July but we waited until September to cut the north field:

He cut and tedded the hay:

And stopped frequently to fix the baler:

At first the baler dropped the bales on the field, requiring us to drive around and pick them up:

But then he got a chute (not shown) which pushed each bale up onto a wagon for someone to stack:

I checked the freshly mowed grass and it looked good. My north field produced so much hay that I stopped at 100 bales (plus the 80 from the far south field). He paid me for everything beyond his half of the bales produced:

This year's chicks are now young chickens and the roosters are beginning to crow and fight:

Sometime soon I will have to do something with the roosters - probably eat them:

The chicken room gets a little crowded at night now, but I'm enjoying watching the young ones explore their world and learn to be free range chickens:

I've continued to drive my car out into the field. I just have to keep it safe from the two little horses, who consider it their own personal toy:

I saw a new wildflower growing in the south field and looked it up, discovering that it is American Pennyroyal, a member of the mint family: