An Iffy Day!

Saturday was a busy day. While we waited for the dew to dry off of the hay, we ran a couple of old bales of hay through the baler to make sure it was working right. Adjusted the bale size and the string, and it was ready to go.
E raked the hay again as there were a few wet spots underneath. He baled about 2/3 of the small field by the road, then the baler broke down. It had been jamming some too. This was a major breakdown! The previous owner had jerry rigged one of the chains and when it broke it messed up the timing, which broke a couple of other parts.
E was not a happy man! The hay in our own fields was raked and ready to bale, but now what do we do????? We went ahead and loaded those bales on the wagon and took them up to the house.

E went to a neighbor to try to find someone that could round bale our hay for us. But he told us he had a square baler that we could use. Ed brought it home and we hooked it up and finished baling up by the road. Then he baled a few rounds of our back pasture just before dark. There was no time to get them up to the barn before dark. Hopefully, they wouldn't absorb too much moisture from the ground.

BUT......when we got up on Sunday morning, it was cloudy and humid. (The weather forecast said no rain on Sunday, but would rain on Monday). Well, it started to rain! And it rained gently for 30 minutes. I have never seen E so unhappy and depressed. In a while it stopped raining, and later the sun came out and it got HOT, and E raked it again, them a little later he started baling. It was dry and fluffy.
I drove the tractor, while E loaded and stacked the hay on the wagon. It was too much work for just us two. E was so tired he could hardly walk. We finally just quit, as we ran out of steam. We put nearly 200 bales in the shed and barn. Then we took the baler back to the neighbor. There were still hay windrows in the fields. Would have made about 70 more bales, but we were just too pooped! We would like to get a second cutting later this summer, but he said we will only do one field! Here are a couple of pictures. Too bad you can't see all the worry and sweat going on.