It’s June and sunny, so that can mean only one thing; haying! The timothy and orchard grass are swaying in the breeze, and when Fern ducks into the field she disappears completely. Though it’s strange to think this far ahead on a sunny summer day, it’s time to start storing all that green grass for winter.
Haying is a multi-step process, and each field takes a total of 3-4 days of sunshine to go from standing to baled. With roughly 75 acres to bale over the course of the next month, we look for every “weather window” we can to get it all mowed, dried, raked, baled, and in the barn. Keeping that in mind, on Sunday we chose our sandiest two fields and set out to mow as soon as Saturday’s rain had percolated through the porous soil.
The mower conditioner cuts the grass and “conditions” it through a set of metal flails, which bend and batter the tough stems to speed the drying process. After that, it’s off to the races with the tedders to spread the grass into a thin layer and regularly flip and fluff it while the sun and breeze do their work. Finally, after several rounds of tedding, the dry hay is raked into windrows for the baler to pick up. 45-50 pounds of loose hay are crammed into each square hay bale, which are plopped out the back of the baler in a long uniform row. Finally, after several days of tedious tractor work, the farm crew swarms the field to pick up every last bale, load them onto a trailer, and stack them like Tetris pieces into our barn and the barns of our hay customers.
Haying is hot, dusty, and scratchy, but as the sun sinks below the horizon and the smell of sweet dried grass wafts from the open barn doors there is a definite feeling of satisfaction at the end of a pickup day. Thanks to the crew for all their hard work on this piece of our enterprise, and please let us know if you are looking for hay to feed your menagerie this winter.
Cheers
Norah and the Sweetland Crew
Week 3 Harvest
Baby Kale
Spinach
Mesclun Mix
Lettuce
Parsnips
Onions
Kohlrabi
Radishes
Scallions
Asparagus
Basil
What’s Cooking This Week
You can find ingredients for all of these recipes in our farm store! We source meats, dairy, grains, beans, sweets, and more from local and sustainable producers. Don’t forget to use your CSA member discount by entering your account phone number in our POS (member discounts are automatically applied to LocalLine purchases for off-farm delivery).