Riding the Rack

We have lots of hay ground.  Acres upon acres upon acres of the wonderful sweet smelling green luscious goodness!  We chop it for haylage and we bale it for straight up alfalfa hay.  When we bale, we do a nice ratio of small square bales and large round bales, which are used for different feeding strategies for different cattle throughout the winter months.  When we round bale, Caleb easily rides along because the mowing, raking and baling are all done with "cabbed" tractors.  However, when we square bale, the baling is done with our 4020, a "no cab" tractor.  Poor not-so-little-anymore Caleb just yearns to be on that tractor with the men!  But alas, a squished Caleb wouldn't do anyone any good, so we've not allowed him to join the men for that kind of baling.  HOWEVER....

Last week, the men did a couple more loads of small bales to add to the existing supply.  Caleb, of course, begged and begged to join them.  I agreed that while he couldn't ride along, I could take him out to the field so he could watch.  What ended up happening was that all three of us (Sarah, Caleb and myself) ended up riding the rack with  Josh as he stacked the bales as they came out of the baler.  I had never thought of this solution!  I was pretty hesitant to try it with two young'uns, but much to Caleb's delight, the men are pretty persuasive and we hopped on the rack and joined in the fun.

This is how the small square baling works: one fella drives the tractor with the baler, the baler bales the hay and then "spits" it out the back end and up the chute.  The fella riding the rack grabs the bale and stacks it.  Simple.  It's a hot, dusty, muscle building job!

 

That's one happy boy!  Papa Loren is on the tractor in the back ground and that's Josh's tushy in the upper left hand corner.  :-)

Despite the grimaces from the dust, the kids (even Sarah) had a good time.  She's looking forward to when she's the one baling on the tractor and Caleb is the one picking up bales on the rack.  Unfortunately, the time might be here sooner than this mama is ready for!

Selfie!

 

See how the bale comes off the chute (I don't know the technical name!) and makes it easier for the guy on the rack to grab it?

Papa Loren took a family photo of us.  Photography might just be his retirement business. 

I think Papa Loren started to get into the picture taking!  Here's another one of his random shots.

Also, notice in all the pictures just how beautiful the sky is!

 

Though he likes to take the pictures, Papa Loren wasn't a fan of being the subject of the photo.  So he used Caleb as a human picture shield... which Caleb loved.

Hot dusty jobs means lots of water breaks... and in Sarah's case, a water break and hat bill washing.

Before too long, Josh needed our riding space to stack bales.  So off we got.  I thought it would be neat to get a picture of the tractor and rack with our silos in the background.  This is what I got.  You can see, of course, the tractor and rack, but you can also see our silos and Josh on the rack catching the bales.  And also take notice of the bird swooping in on the right for an insect snack.  The picture turned out not too bad considering it was a blind shot; I was facing the sun and couldn't see a thing that was on the screen of Josh's phone!