Time again for my least favorite farm job

That's right, hauling hay. I have always severely disliked hauling hay. Although it is not as bad now as when I was a kid. Growing up we hauled lots of hay and I was not the strongest kid in the world so it was really hard for me. I really hated it growing up. These days on the Farm of Hale we only get around 150 bales each year which is not too bad, and I have pythons for arms now so it is not as hard. The worst thing is that it is so hot out on the hay field. Anyway, Saturday we went and hauled 100 bales. It was really good hay and we got a really good price on it so that was good. What really made hauling hay not so bad this time around was I had someone else to help me besides Margo. Usually, Margo drives the truck and I load the hay. This takes a long time because I have to load and stack it all and usually I can not stack it as high because I need someone up on top of the hay on the trailer stacking it as I throw it up. Well, this time one of my friends volunteered to help me. He had never hauled hay before so I was not sure how it would work out but he did awesome. It was such a big help and it went twice as fast. I was able to do two loads in the amount of time it would usually take me to do one. And I was not nearly as tired afterwards because I was not having to lift every single bale. So, a big shout out goes to my friend Adriel for helping me. Here are a couple pics from the hauling.

This is Adriel up on the top of the hay on the trailer.


Here we are after we loaded the second load

New Sheeps

We got some new sheep over the weekend. One of our ewes we already had did not have any babies this year. I am not sure why she didn't but we are not going to keep her if she does not have babies. So, we are going to sell her, so let us know if anyone you know wants a ewe. We bought a new ewe to replace her and this new ewe has a baby ram. It's a ram lamb. We castrated the little ram and we plan on eating him when he gets bigger, but for now he is really cute. Here are some pics of the new ones.

Here is the new ewe and the ram lamb together.


Here is a close up of the ram lamb

Billy Goat for Sale

Tell your friends. We are getting a new billy goat so we need to sell our current billy goat. He is a good sized goat and nice. He likes to breed. $50 buys him.

Goodbye Gob

Well, Monday marked the final day of our cow Gob's (pronounced Job like in the Bible) life. It was time for him to go to the butcher to be turned in to delicious cuts of beef. He will soon be in our freezer and then to our tummies and the tummies of those lucky people who get invited over. Beef, it's what's for dinner. Anyway, he was a pretty good cow overall. Didn't get into to much trouble, although he was a little standoffish.

Here he is when we first bought him.


And this is a pic of him on butcher day eve.

Baseball Fun

I know this is not farm related but I have been meaning to post about the Razorback baseball game we went to last Tuesday but I am just now getting around to it. What makes this baseball game more blog worthy then any of the other baseball games we go to throughout the year is where we got to sit. We were able to "acquire" a luxury box for the game. These are usually owned by businesses or rich people. I have never been in one for a game before. We got 20 tickets with the box so we decided to make a community group (our church small group) outing. It was really awesome. There was an inside part with chairs, tables, and tv's. There was also an outside part with seats and the doors between the inside and outside parts would totally open up to make the whole thing open air. All the food was included in the package deal as well. We had hotdogs, bratwurst, cokes, candy, nachos, beer, ice cream. It was really awesome and so much fun. I wish I had the money to get one of those boxes for all the games. Here are some pics from our time at the game.

Inside


Outside


Our view


The hog mascot even came to our box to see us

I'm Not Dead Yet

I know it has been a while since I have posted. Not a whole lot has been going on around here because it has been raining for it seems like forever. I was getting so tired of the rain. Finally though, the sun came out today and it is supposed to be sunny for the rest of the week. I thought I would give you all a mini garden update. The garden has not been doing so well. It has just been so wet for so long. It has rained about everyday for the past 3 weeks. Some of the plants seem to do ok with all the rain but most of them were not growing as well as they should be. And some of the plants even rotted and I had to replant. I hope this week of sun will get the garden back on track. Here are a few pics.

Here is a tomato plant, I think I put in 26 plants


Green Beans


Sugar Snap Peas


Our strawberries have also been getting ripe the past couple weeks, although a good portion of them are rotting before they get ripe because of so much rain


And I will leave you with a flower. I planted these in the fall so this is our first year to have them bloom. I really like them. It is an iris