Wednesday evening the tractor and operators arrived to begin chopping the alfalfa field. They had told Lamar there was only enough for one wagon load in this small field.
Well, after one circle around the field, the wagon was half-full. They asked me to jump up into the back of the wagon and fork haylage to the back of the wagon. I felt winded afterward. Had I only known then what Thursday would hold….
Lamar, Joel, and I started unloading that first wagon about 7:00 Thursday morning. Remember the tractor fellows said only one wagon load, right? I predicted we’d be at it all day. Turns out we called it quits around 6:30 that evening after nine wagon loads. We estimate we unloaded twenty tons of haylage by hand.
The last two loads we were all three feeling fatigued. Lamar called Perci, our neighbor, and asked for help. We were all grateful for his help. He could work without huffing and puffing. It was a blessing to have reinforcement.
Lamar asked the tractor fellow to come back for a second cutting in a couple of months. He’s planning to put that into square bales. It’s sounding like I should be able to buy either hay or haylage for the goats. That should keep up milk production during the dry season.
Our neighbor Oscar came over to see the haylage pile. He thought it was a good enough idea to try himself. He arranged with the tractor fellow to leave his equipment here and come back next week to chop a field for him.
This morning I dragged myself out of bed. It’s been awhile since I’ve been this sore. I wanted to get to market early to look at goats. I arranged to go along with Lamar to help haul his stuff in from the road since Beulah is away.
There weren’t many goats today, but I found three does I liked. The one has two bucklings on her, about a month old. The other had her kid sold today. I’m going to try milking them.
The does are Barbara, Maude, and Ruby. I am planning to keep one buckling, Pippin. For now I’m calling the other buckling “He-who-must-not-be-named” because I don’t want to waste a name on him.
Tomorrow will be a full day. I need to study for my sermon, clean out the pig pen, and maybe work more on the chicken pen. I offered to cut some grass for the haylage pile. We have to cover the plastic to protect it from the sun; otherwise, the plastic will be broken down quickly. At this elevation, we don’t have enough atmosphere to protect us.
Juan David 