Haying.....The 4th & Final Cutting

I missed my chance to post yesterday. It was a busy day for us. Countrychick and I were gone in the morning, busy with schoolwork and chores in the afternoon, someone hogged the computer when he came home from work......and by the time dinner was done, kitchen cleaned up, critters cared for, etc......I was to tired to post.........but not to tired to stay up and watch Grey's Anatomy............So today I will start my series of posts on the haying process that takes place here on the farm.
*************************************************************************************
This week marked the beginning of the end of summer for us..........with the start of the 4th and final cutting for hay. Haying usually starts here around the end of May, but this year, haying started the second week of June. We had a very cool spring, so the growth on the alfalfa was slow to start. So we had 1st cutting in June, 2nd cutting in July, 3rd cutting in August and now 4th cutting in September. There are 6 pivots of hay on the farm...........one section ( 640 acres ) has four pivots on it ( each pivot is 125 acres or thereabouts ), then there are two other pivots........one at the opposite end of the valley and the hill pivot. The pivot circle being shown in the photos below is located behind my house. The photo below shows a fresh swath of hay..................

That is hayman in the seat of the John Deere swather..............it is a rotary swather, which allows for fast cutting under the right conditions. We have two rotary swathers on the farm. Hayman and Mr. B. can drop one pivot a day..................between 4 to 6 hours of cutting depending on the field and conditions.
Each pass of the swather leaves a swath of hay...........the pivot is cut in a circular pattern.
Gee, he's coming right at me............should I move...............these swathers really move compared to the swathers of "old". When I first met Hayman all those years ago.........the ranch he worked on had New Holland swathers and they just seemed to creep along in the fields.......it would take a day or more to drop a field of hay in those days...........things have changed in the last 20 years. ( when we first met, Hayman worked on a ranch.............ranch meaning they ran cows and put up hay............it was a huge ranch that encompassed two states. He had been working there since he was 13 yrs. old...............we left there in 1994 shortly after the ranch sold. ) Today, we farm.........no cows to run or care for...........just the putting up of hay.
Both swathers working in the field below..................4th cutting started on Tuesday with the cutting of the hill pivot..............one swather broke down, so Hayman cut most of the pivot by himself that day.........Mr. B. got in the field late.........by the way, as I mentioned in an earlier post, our anniversary was on Tuesday.........I also forgot to mention that Mr. B and K. also celebrate their anniversary on the same day as ours.........just a different year................how cool is that! Today Hayman and Mr. B. are cutting pivot number four.........tomorrow they will cut the final pivot of alfalfa........I know I said there are six pivots on the farm and if you are counting, I have only talked about cutting five of them..........one pivot is new seeding, planted after the triticale was taken out...........so that pivot won't get a cutting until next year.
I just love flowers and even alfalfa has pretty ones.....................you don't want to see a lot of flower in your dairy hay. A few here and there is fine.................you just don't want an entire field to turn purple on you! All of our hay is sold to a dairy in Idaho.
In the coming days, I will continue to post about the haying process...........we have raking, baling and hauling to cover.................stay tuned.