Rolling Hay

Saturday, while we were planting the mums, Phil Garmon and his grandson were cutting hay. Larry Anderson was also cutting the hay on the other farm. They have let it lay and dry for two days in the 90 degree heat, so it was ready to rake and roll today. They waited until about 10 AM to start to give the sun time to dry the dew off of the hay laying on the ground. Cody used a rake behind the tractor that gathers the hay and rolls it over while also moving it into a 'wind row'.
   
Then Steve used another tractor with a hay roller behind it to roll the hay into large rolls. He just drives over the 'wind row' and the hay roller picks up the hay and continually turns the hay on large rubber belts. As he drives over the hay, the size of the roll increases until it weighs about 500 lbs. At that point the back of the hay roller tips up and the roll of hay is kicked out. Phil then uses another tractor with a hay spike on the rear and on the front scoop to pick up the rolls and place them on a wagon specially made to haul the large rolls of hay. The wagon carries ten rolls and then Phil pulls it to their farm where he unloads the hay and stacks it for storage. David McIntyre was raking the hay on the other farm and Larry was rolling the hay. They leave it lay until later, when they bring their hay wagon down and pick up their hay. We rode to Columbia in the Mustang with the top down and ate at Sonic. We returned home and watered the mums using the tractor to scoop water out of the creek and the 4-wheeler to pull the red wagon with 4 five gallon buckets of water down the rows and dip out a cup full of water and pour on each mum. All 1,000 of them!