Haying Time

Prairie Hay – August brings hot breezes, blaring sun, wilting plants, and a landscape covered with bales. It's haying time in the Flinthills! If you're not familiar, this is the time of year that farmers and ranchers prepare enough native grass hay to feed their cattle and horses all winter long. The name prairie hay covers a mix of grasses growing on the plains such as big blue stem, little blue stem, Indian grass, Buffalo grass, even crab grass.

Mowing - the process starts with clipping the long, long stems of grass with a tractor and attached mower or a "swather". Many times the grass on the ground must be turned over with a contraption called a rake. The rake tidies the grass into long compact rows for the baler.

Baling - while small, square balers still exist, most farmers use either a large round or large square these days. Larger bales are faster to move and easier to store. The mown hay must be just the right level of dryness to feed into a baler smoothly - just a little sprinkle of rain or heavy dew can cause it to be too wet and delay the baling. There's nothing worse than the misery of hand digging the crushed stems out, little by little, from a plugged tight baler machine when the sun is blaring down on you. And too dry hay doesn't work well either - the hay can get so dry it flies into the air rather than into the baler which is a real waste. Wasted hay equals a hungry cow herd.

Hauling - the final challenge is to move all the bales off the field quickly so that the new grass underneath each bale isn't killed. In other words: the faster the better.

Safety - precautions have to be heeded as this flurry of activity spreads across the plains. Prairie fires can flare up fast with the hot sun blares down as a metal swather blade skims over a flint rock causing a spark. A fire extinguisher, a jug full of water, a scoop shovel, and a cell phone can come in real handy. It's not uncommon to hear about a baler on fire from a mechanical problem, or a tractor that's overheated with 100 degree temperatures. Look out for overheated workers and nests of bumble bees and yellow jackets too!

Pride -have you ever noticed that all the bales on a hillside look the same? It's a little contest with most farmer/ranchers to make every hay bale the exact same height and weight as the bale before it.

Beauty - this morning I see bales dotting the fields for miles in every direction. The hills and valleys of grass have gotten their summer haircut in preparation for fall and winter.