Making hay while the sun shines

Good sized ranch making hay on a very hot day. Hay feeds their cattle and along with the cows, is a very salable product. When I say hot, look at the heat shimmer in the final picture. The black blobs on the pivot arm are crows or ravens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harvesting soybeans

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Been there, done that back in the day - all hand work. Then you get to unload it and stack it in the hay barn. I think I prefer the current mechanized methods! By a lot.

I used to be a hard working guy......

Love the accumulator and the multi-lift.

Still gotta throw it into the barn by hand though.

Once I was in Ireland helping friends "lift the turf". Out on the bog, turf is cut and stacked to dry. This is "old school" though the innovation was converting the roof of an old car to use as a sled. Attached by a long rope to the wheel of an old tractor that had the tire removed to use as a winch. When ready all the cut bricks had to be loaded in batches onto to the "sled" which we dragged to the end of the families bank of turf on the bog, fill the sled and winched to the lorry where each load had to be thrown up to load it. Than driven back to the farm and the turf shed. The shed was covered but open on 2 sides. The corrugated roof was not quite tall enough for the turf lorry to get under, so the cart would be unloaded and the turf thrown off and then lifted yet again into the shed. So each brick of turf was lifted 3 times and their were several loads. this was an all day job with about 6 of us. The food that night never tased so good. :) In the west of Ireland especially, turf was and is stilled used to cook with and in the fireplaces in many old farms.