Summer is in full swing on the Homestead and we have hit the ground running. We've spent the last couple months adjusting to Baby V.A.R. Everyone is enjoying spoiling her.
She's getting too big too fast, and has entered that fun age of recognition, where she will smile and "talk" to us.
The boys are having a blast dressing her up for church. It's a good thing the summer season is here so she can wear all the summer dresses she recieved before she gets to big for them.
After the 4th of July, we had a few days to get ready for the Law/Brown family reunion. We had a great time visiting with past and new family which we had not seen or met in 12 years. Out of 15 children, 14 are 12 years and younger, and 11 were present. The median age of our recent family reunion dropped to around 35 years of age as 50 percent present were new members. So, in 12 more years at our next reunion . . .
Of course the traditional group photo was taken.
And then, as soon as company left, we started the hay hauling for the winter. Next time I am thinking we might have to schedule the reunion a bit longer so there would be a few more hands on deck to help move those small square bales!
This year's hay crop is a little behind schedule, due to a cooler start to the summer with sporadic rain and thunderstorms. But now everyone is making up for lost time.
Here is one of three trailer loads that we stacked in the barn that day.
This year with the amount of hay we need to purchase and store in our new barn we needed to come up with an easier solution for getting it into the hayloft.
A lovely tool was lent to us by one of our good friends and milk customer. A hay elevator by name. A wonderful invention!
Of course some of the boys had to thoroughly investigate it.
While the eldest waited with the intention of being the one to run this generous mechanization.
Daddy making sure CW knew how to handle the elevator safely, as well as making sure he can maneuver the 77 pound bales onto it. Those bales weigh as much as he does, and I know they outweigh the other two boys helping.
Final last minute instructions on who does what and how to do it. JW1 will throw the bales off the trailer to the ground, where PW will roll, drag, flip or otherwise get them to CW. He will load them onto the hay elevator for their trip into the hayloft where Kit and his dad, Mark, will stack them.
JW1, ahhh the feeling of power and strength as he stands for a moment longer to watch the success of his effort to get the bale off the trailer.
Even though the bale is as tall as he is, and outweighs him by 20 pounds, PW still manages to manipulate the bale into position for his older brother.
Working together to get the job done. The three boys kept up with Kit and Mark stacking inside the barn.
Every now and then there was a breakdown in the chain but for the most part the boys worked well together.
At one point they even managed to get ahead on their bales while the men were solving logistical stacking problems in the barn.
Out of 288 bales we put in the barn that day the chain only came off the track once, and we didn't have any other maintenance issues with it at all. It worked really slick and we were grateful for generous friends.
All in all it was a good day, the boys and men hauled three trailer loads of 96 bales each for a total of 288 bales or 11 tons of hay. Needless to say there was no griping about going to bed that night. One more day like this one and we will have all we need for the producing dairy girls, then we start hauling from our field for the rest of the animals.