Worst. Hayride. Ever.

The National Weather Service predicted 20 to 30 mile per hour winds yesterday, Sunday, just in time for our church's harvest fest. The whole town was invited and DH agreed to bring hay wagons for a hay ride. Even with a wind advisory, the show must go on.

We brought sleeping bags and our riders covered up. Even though he cut the ride short, we turned into the wind just as a 40 mile an hour gust hit. It doesn't sound like much, but while sitting in an open wagon, it brought tears to our eyes. The wind howled through the metal sides of the wagons, utility lines galloped overhead and a light pole came down. Two toddler fairy princesses huddled in the blanket. with just their magic wands and foam and glitter wings showing. THeir mom wore a raincoat while the rest of us were in Carhartts and fur hats. Everyone survived, dashing into the church for hot chocolate as soon as we deplaned.

When we got home -- although we expected limbs down, and speculated there might be too many in the lane to get the wagons through -- we did not expect to see a pile of rubble where one of the other hay wagons stood.

Grandpa and Grandma watched it happen. This one, also with high sides to catch bales from the kick-baler, was made of wood and caught a lot more of the wind. All this summer I thought it seemed tippy when we unloaded it. The wind hit and the box tipped one way, then tipped the other way, then as another gust went through it rolled off the gear and crashed.

I guess that piece of equipment is now depreciated out.

Here's the break down list:
Neighbor's combine.
Monday, arrived to run corn. Broke down, needed chain links
Tuesday, broke down, needed hydraulic hoses. DH and Neighbor had to make two parts runs.
Wednesday, broke down.
Thursday, broke down.
Friday, bad weather.
Saturday, bad weather.

Cattle trailer ... needs something welded.

Truck tailgate ... doesn't latch. After all the abuse, I'm surprised it took this long for something to break.

Harvest continues

DH and Grandpa had to make some decisions about harvest. The corn is wet, but we had a lot of wind damage with some rows lodged (tumbled into each other) and some down completely. The remains of Hurrican Ike went through here with about 8 inches of rain and high winds that hit the drought-damaged corn pretty bad.

Since it's fragile, "the men" including DS1 figured they would be money ahead to harvest now, even if we have to pay for drying, than take a chance on losing more to weather damage.

DH hired a Mennonite neighbor with a smaller combine for the job. We sold our combine years ago. In other years we've had neighbors and cousins with bigger machinery harvest, but to get all we can out of the field we needed someone who was content to go slow and proceed carefully.

Break-down's ...

Neighbor's combine broke a chain
Disk -- broken bolts. It's "shedded" until spring, though.

Harvest, part 2

Yesterday morning I went off on a tangent about the cows getting out.

Yesterday afternoon "the men" including our 10-year-old DS1, finished harvesting soybeans. Since the weather turned off dry from the county fair to the start of school -- about six weeks -- we wondered how the beans would turn out.

I was surprised. On the lighter soil, they yielded as well as any other year. On the heavy ground, where I expected a higher yield, they did not do well at all. My theory is that the clay in our heavy ground set up like concrete and the roots couldn't get anything out of the ground. At least they were not a total loss.

Grandpa finished the last field of hay. It is so sweet and green it looks like it belongs in a salad bowl. DH calls this candy. Dairy cows in milk make the best use of it.

Now we are planting wheat.

Here's the break-down list:
On the tractors --
Transmission trouble
Grain wagons --
Flat tires
Disk -- broken hitch, needed welding
Nothing on the hay baler
Nothing on the hay wagons.
Big sigh of relief ... nothing expensive (this week, anyway)

Harvesting

Over the weekend, the cows got out at 2 a.m. Saturday. A big bunch of them -- all the black ones, of course -- were runnign down the road in the middle of the night. So as we are driving them through the neighbor's yard and trying to get them back in their pasture, I was noticing the sound of their hooves, how the moon looked golden as its nearly setting, how scary DH looked silhouetted against the night sky.

That was because we had to push them back up a cut-bank they had fallen off as they came through the broken fence. Cows have no depth perception. I think that's why the whole bunch did not get out -- as soon as their herdmates began to drop off the edge of the world they had second thoughts. None of them were hurt. Cattle are remarkably resilient.

We did all this by the light of the moon, camping lanterns, our flashlight with barely any battery left and a lot by ear. Although the neighbors have a three-acre yard they only mow a patch around the house. The rest is, well, a biologist would say something about succession, from grasses to brush to small trees and back to forest.

At 2 a.m., the middle step of that -- brush and small trees -- is hard to thrash through and keep up with running calves.

As we met the neighbors, who came out and tried to help and finished up getting all the cows and calves back in the sheriff showed up. He could have spot-lighted the whole situation but arrived too late.

By the time we got home it was past 4 a.m.

I still had to get up and open the restaurant. Needless to say, I did not cashier any all day -- I was too clumsy and confused to handle money.