Fingers beware

A month or two ago Al decided he didn't have enough tractor toys so he acquired a circular saw from an old standing engine and stripped the hopper off a tractor mounted fertilizer spreader to mount it onto. 

After adding a transfer box and driveshaft from an old finger mower and lots of fiddling and mucking about, hey presto a tractor driven circular saw.  

It was used properly for the first time today and while it won't win any health and safety awards, it goes through dry acacia wood like a dream.

Hay the end

We finished hay making this afternoon and for once it wasn't under the menace of gathering storm clouds although the 30 degrees made it unpleasantly hot work.  The rain of a few nights ago didn't affect us too badly.  Around 200 bales went into the barn (you can barely crawl under the roof beams the stack is so high) 

and another 100 are waiting on the ground for a buyer who will hopefully take them directly off the field tomorrow.

Apart from the wheel on the mower dropping off in the hay on day one, the machinery worked fine and our new baler started behaving itself; today it only made two missed bales in 100 which is pretty acceptable for a 200€ machine.  The hay is very high quality and the smell coming off the barn is something to behold

Tomorrow is a bank holiday here so the project is to build a pontoon on the near side of the lake in this photo. The temperature is slowly climbing and we'll soon be able to swim (22 degrees and rising)

Hay making continued

Thus far all goes well, the hay is top quality and although there is less quantity than we hoped for in some fields (mostly due to the sheep being put onto it until relatively late) it is fantastic quality. 

These photos were taken yesterday late afternoon after the seemingly inevitable equipment breakdown.  This time it was the wheel that the hay cutter rides-on which had a huge bulge on the side so off Al went to the tractor shop to get a new tyre. once reassembled, the wheel, axle and bearings fell to bits in the cut hay.  After a lot of sacre bleus etc, all the bits were found, put back together with handfuls of grease, hope and prayer and the machine finished the job.

Al has since run the hay bob over it twice; once late yesterday and once this morning and in places it is already dry enough to put into rows for baling.

Last minute update, Al got caught in a rain shower while raking the corners back in tonight.  Bl***dy weather forecasts!

Hay making and ragwort (jacobskreuz)

We checked the weather forecast this evening and we have solid sunshine and 25-30 degree temperatures forecast for the next 6 days so there is no putting it off, we must start the next section of hay making tomorrow.

The grass is up to shoulder height in places;

The previous period went quite well, we cut our sloping field and a couple of fields that a neighbour kindly donated.  In total we made 400 quite light bales (average 15 kgs) which were stored in the top of the barn.  The hay was in perfect condition and smelled just like hay should.

We have recently been looking out for a plant called ragwort which is poisonous to horses causing serious liver problems and can even lead to death.  We have therefore both been walking the fields pulling it out so in order to be able to say we have done everything we can to horse owners that might buy our hay.

Al gathered this bunch in our 2 acre field this evening

Geese

Last year we adopted two geese supposedly a couple called Horace and Dorace; after waiting and waiting alas no eggs appeared.  What we suspected turned out to be true and they were indeed two boys so they were henceforth known as Horace and Boris.  So we purchased two female goslings and had kept them seperate from the boys up to today as they didn't have adult feathers to keep them waterproof. Today they were released for the first time and they seemed to get on fine during their first swimming lessons and they were welcomed by the boys.

Yesterday Al caught his first Ragondin in his humane trap and swiftly dispatched it with an air rifle shot