This is our first summer at Riverbend Farm and we have learned a lot about keeping poultry, growing our own food, planting an orchard, deer-proofing our gardens, doing our own repairs and a million other things.
As July set in it began to be apparent that our hayfield needed some serious attention. We had a few people tell us that we could get farmers to hay the field and take the hay off for free, but that didn't materialize. After all, its July and the farmers are all busy mowing their own fields.
Now It bears mentioning that this hayfield has been mowed with a riding mower for at least the past 5 years, as the people who owned the homestead before us did not farm it, and kept the entire field mowed short. This has not been good for the condition of the hay as it has mostly gone back to short grasses and mosses and such.
I decided that although I wasn't needing to feed any cattle or goats this year, I still needed to get the hay off before the field got worse. So we had the idea that we could perhaps hay it ourselves and use what we got for bedding for the chickens. Waste not want not they say!
As July set in it began to be apparent that our hayfield needed some serious attention. We had a few people tell us that we could get farmers to hay the field and take the hay off for free, but that didn't materialize. After all, its July and the farmers are all busy mowing their own fields.
Now It bears mentioning that this hayfield has been mowed with a riding mower for at least the past 5 years, as the people who owned the homestead before us did not farm it, and kept the entire field mowed short. This has not been good for the condition of the hay as it has mostly gone back to short grasses and mosses and such.
I decided that although I wasn't needing to feed any cattle or goats this year, I still needed to get the hay off before the field got worse. So we had the idea that we could perhaps hay it ourselves and use what we got for bedding for the chickens. Waste not want not they say!
| There was a slight problem however: we had no mowing machine, no scythe, no equipment whatsoever besides a few rakes and a fork. We needed a no-brainer solution to getting some of this grass off the field and into the barn. I do have a little Cub Cadet 1000 Series garden tractor that we picked up second hand, and it actually didn't do a bad job of cutting down the hay. Now we did only use it on very ripe, dry standing hay. It spit it out in lengths about 6-12 inches long in nice neat windrows you can see in this picture to the left. I don't think it would have been a good idea to try mowing long grass that was green, as it would very likely clog the mower deck and cause a lot of trouble. |  |
So we mowed the field slowly going all in one direction, in order that the cut grass would line up in neat little windrows. It certainly didn't do the neatest job but we were improvising and didn't really have any expectations as to how it would come out. The little windrows were easy to spread around in the sun to dry, although this part of the job was somewhat labor intensive. It took the better part of a morning to get it all laid flat to dry.
This picture shows my son Sam bringing the hay into windrows for the evening. You can see the little garden tractor in the background.
I had once watched a Youtube video about a man making hay by himself. He raked his up onto an old plastic tarp to drag it up into the barn. I figured since we were lacking a team of horses and a haywain, a tarp would just have to do.
So once we determined that all of the hay was dry enough to store we stacked it up onto a tarp, and my older boy and I dragged it to the hayloft and packed it in loosely. We then had a good laugh stomping around packing it all down.
Below are a few more pictures that show the process as we managed it. All in all it was a fun experience, and with a bit of effort and quick thinking we got some hay for our animals this winter. No one would call it conventional, but when you're homesteading on a budget you just have to make do with what you've got.
I had once watched a Youtube video about a man making hay by himself. He raked his up onto an old plastic tarp to drag it up into the barn. I figured since we were lacking a team of horses and a haywain, a tarp would just have to do.
So once we determined that all of the hay was dry enough to store we stacked it up onto a tarp, and my older boy and I dragged it to the hayloft and packed it in loosely. We then had a good laugh stomping around packing it all down.
Below are a few more pictures that show the process as we managed it. All in all it was a fun experience, and with a bit of effort and quick thinking we got some hay for our animals this winter. No one would call it conventional, but when you're homesteading on a budget you just have to make do with what you've got.
 A Windrow of dry hay.  Hay piled in the loft. |  Plastic tarp ready for hay.  Ahh, just let me rest a while.... |  A tarp piled up with hay.  Hay for the chickens. |
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