Personal best

I'm going for a personal best...how much rain can fall on my mowed hay before I get it rolled up.

Sunday night...totally unexpected and un-forcast 2.3"

Tedded and raked, went out to bale, got 4 bales, rear door hinge broke on the baler, got .15" that night (wednesday)

Got another 3/4" yesterday(thursday) on the windrowed hay.

Gonna ted it later today to spread it out, saturday, Sunday and tuesday it's supposed to rain.

Not gonna be any feed value left, but the cows can roll around in it..if I ever get it baled.

Done ranting...for now

Fred

I can sympathize with you. Showed no signs of rain here in Central KS for close to two weeks. Dropped some choice brome down last night and now calling for thunderstorms tonight. Then, no chance of rain for the next two weeks. Go figure. Murphy's Law I guess - Bob

I gambled on 45 acres of free hay that "had to be done in the next two days before the surveyers show up". I just got in from 8 hours in the 886 - it's all baled. The monitor smoked out on me and the baler plugged up twice, but some really nice hay is rolled and ready to haul. Now I have more fields to lay down. Oh, and 800 acres of beans and/or milo to put in. Why am I getting ready for bed? No time for that.

My cousin was known as the best meteorologist around. No rain in the forecast but if he cut hay everyone knew it would rain. Never failed.

Fred, I don't think I can top that for putting up anything that wetted that much, nor do I want to try. Here in far western Noo Yawk, down wind of Lake Erie, we have our own challenges.

Due to weather and soil conditions last year, I did get a first cutting in late August when our "damp" field finally dried off enough to not get stuck in. It was for bedding hay and to keep the field from getting weedy, but the hogs seem to like it. I buried a tractor attempting to run a conditioner around a damp spot in a "dry" field for a first cutting in July the year before, but comparing our usual weather and many others is nearly "apples and oranges". Here a 3-4 day window of no rain AND low humidity is almost as rare as hens teeth, whether forecast or not.

It's been an exceptionally dry spring here, and still, a bale sitting on the ground for 15 minutes will be picking up moisture you can feel with a hand. I cut high to keep the windrows 'up'. Several rakings are necessary, the last just a few minutes in front of the baler. And even if blue skies and sunshine are predicted for 200 miles in any direction for a solid week, there are micro-climates around here that can brew a pop-up shower on a cloudless day. I still have a few windrows of "washed hay" from rain thursday night that was supposed to miss us, that didn't dry down enough yesterday, that I'm hoping will get enough (predicted) sunshine to get up today. The current look of the sky isn't very promising. Beyond today the guessers are calling for a solid week of "Mostly cloudy with a 30-80% chance of scattered showers and thunder showers". If today fails, that would make twice in 4 years that this small but heavy yielding field gets composted rather than baled.

While spending uncountable hours on often un-padded pan seats over 50 years, I've come to sing this to myself to pass the time:

"Cut, ted, rake the hay,
'till your butt's in pain;
And pray we get it baled and up
before it starts to rain."

For brain exercise I try to hear it in my head as a three part round, which I've gotten pretty good at. Four part, not so much. Yet. I suspect I'll have plenty more seat time to practice.

UPDATE another 1.1 inches Saturday