ack! It's raining, AGAIN!

[Chanda]

It's raining again, such weird summer weather.  Mother Nature seems to be trying to make up for two years of drought in like two months.   
Having a heck of time getting through haying.   My hopeful horse hay was put up dry, but it's been rained on in the field; hopefully, it's shedding water well, and the inside of the bales will still be good.   And, hopefully, it tests well, so I don't need much for supplementation.

[Ryan]

We have had a heap too !

[Chanda]

now cooler temps and humidity are slowing down harvest.
we got the oats harvested, and are working on wheat, just started wheat yesterday.

[Anna]

Don't talk to me about rain! For the past couple of months we decided to leave any finishing touches in the barn for the winter months and to get on with outside jobs. Have dug a large hole in the back 'garden' ready for a pond - got a liner in so nicely filling with rain water right now. But we needed shale for the base of the garden tool/storage shed. Now most of the hills here in Wales are made up of shale, with maybe an inch or two of soil or maybe a foot of soil as a covering, so it is just a matter of digging somewhere suitable. Our closest field slopes gently away from our barn/buildings and we thought it a good idea to clear a top area of this, moving the soil and digging out the needed shale to give us a flat clear hard standing useful for the minis when self feeding from their hay bales through the winter - no more boggy areas. Good idea you would think? Well not quite! This area seems to have plenty of soil above the needed shale and we have only been able to clear a smallish area so far ending up with piles of soil we know not what to do with and now small amounts of shale. Of course our elderly (read ancient rust bucket) JCB cannot cope with the gentle climb up out of the field if there is so much as a light dew on the field and we simply cant risk it getting stuck in there - in the past it has been known to slither gently down to the bottom of a field - it lacks any sort of braking system - where it had to stay until sufficient dry weather appeared for it to be rescued! Daughter is the one who drives Digby the digger, but she works and for the past few months it seems that she is always working on fine, dry days and free to dig only when it is too wet - why is that?? So we sit here looking at piles of wet soggy soil and a small pile of ready to move shale and the rain and wind laughing at us!!

[Ryan]

Why doesn't mother nature play nicely , when we need her too ?

We are just starting to see some lovely spring weather , enough to get the rugs off the TBs. The minis are staring to shed coats.

Did you get your wheat done Chanda ?

Hope your daughter has managed a day off when the weathers nice Anna

[Chanda]

Did you get your wheat done Chanda ?

No, not yet; we just barely started when it turned wet and cold.  Hopefully, we'll warm up and dry up enough to get it off before winter comes to stay.

[Chanda]

We finally finish wheat harvest this afternoon.  not sure how long we were delayed due to damp chilly weather, but it finally straightened out, and we've been going at it pretty steady the last couple weeks (a couple breaks in there, but only a day or two).

[Anna]

What a relief for you Chanda, hopefully it will provide you with enough 'fodder' for the winter months (could we hope that it might be a 'short' winter this year?) How are your hay bales looking? It is still sending rain in bucket fulls over us, lots of local flooding. Poor minis are getting a bit fed up with it in spite of all the wooded shelter they have. When will it stop I wonder?

[Chanda]

We haven't hauled all the hay home, yet, so my proposed horse hay isn't here.   Can't wait for it to be in the yard, so I can test it, and figure out what to supplement it with (the hay alone doesn't do it).
Some of the wheat isn't good.

[Ryan]

Hope the weather stays good enough so you can get the hay home and packed away before the weather deteriorates

When does it usually start to snow ?

[Chanda]

Hope the weather stays good enough so you can get the hay home and packed away before the weather deteriorates

When does it usually start to snow ?

Today!
There was snow on the ground this morning.   It doesn't usually stick this time of year, but sometimes it does.
Our hay stacks outside, round bales, I just peel off the outer layer, and we feed it to the cows.

[Ryan]

Its 93 today here , which is crazy for this time of the year here. I have feeling we are in for a scorching summer here.

Carly (who is a member here)was in Melbourne over the last week on a holiday with her cousin, she was messaging me to say how green it is here compared to where she is from. She lives up the top end of Australia and they have not had rain in months and months. She sent me a few pics of her place and I felt terribly sad for her.

[dcwolcott]

Well, tell Carly we miss her!  Sounds terrible if there has been no rain at all.  She must be devastated.

Hope you can get all the hay set up properly for your winter out there, Chanda!