Low Technology Hay Making

We have had the unusual circumstance in North Wales of a run of dry sunny days. Three dry sunny days in a row to be precise. While previously this might haver been a cue for considering having a barbecue, or visiting the beach, or even taking off a jumper this year it meant only one thing; making hay. It has been so wet until now that we feared we would never manage to make hay and I was fearful of what our neighbours would say when they saw our sheep all  bags of bones over the winter with nothing to eat.

The first step was to find our field of grass. The upper 2 acre filed had been earmarked for this. It had not been topped this year and has not been grazed for a few years and it looked like a good meadow to start with.  It shares with our other fields the disadvantage of being very hilly and as the manual labour went on this became increasingly important. Cutting uphill is serious business and develops aches in  muscles that you never know you had.

We used the Goldoni two wheeled tractor with a 53inch finger cutter for the cutting. (It is called a finger blade after the tendency to remove the users fingers and toes). We have no pictures of this in operation as we were to keen to get cracking and get the field cut to take any pictures. The weather sites gave us a maximum of 3 days and we could not loiter.

During the cutting I became very aware of how many creatures call the meadow home. There were voles, frogs, crickets, dragonflies and even small snakes fleeing from my path as I advanced through the grass. The cutting though hard work took about 4 hours and the machine cut well leaving good clear swathes of grass behind it. My assistants followed and arranged the hay for drying.

At the end of the first day the hays was gathered up into windrushes to try and reduce the effect of dew in the morning. The next two days were taken up with turning and tedding the hay. The hay was turned twice each day. Each time taking a minimum of two hours.

During this we learnt the advantage of using the right tools. A pitchfork is much better than any other implement and well worth the money. We now have two, one each, and they might also come in handy if ever there are strange ungodly goings on at the local castle (Though I am not sure we have any flaming torches to go with them).

By the end of the third day we were exhausted and the final turn of the hay was  followed by a gathering of it together into mounds for transfer to the barn. This was the hardest of all the jobs.Each load weighed about 40 kilograms, was dragged on a tarpauline to the end of the field (Up and downhill) then carried to the barn. It was slow going and we didn't finish until after 10p.m. and the latter runs were done by torchlight.

However, it is now done. The barn is full.  It rained through the night and most of today and it did not matter. Our sheep have their winter dinners stored safely away and we have another skill tucked under our belt.