Hay and Chores

This week has started a heavy hay week. We have 3 fields down across the county. One field of alfalfa at my brothers at the far north end of the county, another about midway up the county of grass, and a 28 acre field of alfalfa here. Of course the rain has started again so it looks like we won't get the hay up until the end of the week. I started cutting yesterday and got a couple of passes around the field when a tie rod end popped off of my tractor. The tie rod hooks the steering to the wheels. I couldn't quite understand why I was sliding so much til I looked down and saw one wheel steering left and the other right. I called my brother Tim and asked him if he wanted to cut some hay. I went up with my truck and a trailer and picked up his tractor. Tim finished cutting the hay well after dark. It had to come down, rain or no rain. The alfalfa was pretty close to full bloom so it was time. Next we will be cutting oat hay. We have about 50 acres of oats that are a nurse crop to the alfalfa. The nurse crop is crowding out the weeds allowing the alfalfa to grow to a size that will then keep the weeds crowded out on its own. One exciting event this morning during chores was notable. We were moving the cows across the pasture as part of our rotational grazing and one of the steers that is in their own part of the pasture decided it wanted to be in the company of the cows bad enough that it jumped the string fence. It wasn't able to jump the next string that would have allowed it in with the cows, but since we've never had any of our cattle jump the string fence it was notable. We ended up moving the steers and bull back into the paddock and we'll start the process of feeding the steers toward finishing them. The bull will be along for the ride with the steers until he's ready to go back out into the pasture with the cows later in the summer.