Tag Archives: hay

Tractors Getting the Job Done

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My son and I took a walk this afternoon to see if we could spot any interesting critters, like we did yesterday. No dice. Too sunny and too hot. The critters were all holed up. We did, however, see a neighbor plowing his fields, ready to plant corn.

Digging Things Up

Then another neighbor came by to ask if he could cut our field. He wants to cut it for hay but it needs some work before that can happen. There isn’t much grass but there is a lot of other plant life. I took a walk while he went to get his tractor to see if there were any ground nests. My hesitation with cutting the field this early is nesting bobolinks. They seem to like the adjacent fields better than ours, however, and we are clear of bobolink nests for the time being.  I did see a couple of the warbling birds just beyond our field but none were hanging out in ours.

Bobolink in the Shrubbery

So he mowed. With the big honking tractor, unlike the one we used ourselves to mow in the past, the one that now seems what one might call wee, it took less than two hours. It took us eight to ten hours with the smaller tractor. He got the job done before we knew it, waved and headed back up the road.

Upper Part of the Field

Lower Part of the Field

The gulls had a time with it, picking up the mice that tried to run away. Poor mice. This is the first of perhaps three cuts for the summer. Eventually, we hope, grass will outcompete the “weeds” and will fill in the meadow. Then, bail it and feed it to the cows over the hill.

It looks all right, and it smells great. And I can’t say I will miss the wild parsnip that was starting to get way too tall. That stuff is trouble, and I am happy to see the fat stems of that invasive plant get chopped. Let’s see some timothy take its place. That will feed some animals. Even better than the mice fed the gulls.

Like I said, poor mice.

Smoke News

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My wife surprised me and took me out to dinner this evening.  She got someone to watch the kids, got all gussied up to look more beautiful than she usually does (which pretty much makes me get all weak-kneed on a normal day) and we headed over the hill to the Bearded Frog in Shelburne.  They have good food at that particular establishment.  The last time we ate there I had to try three times to make something resembling the melt-in-you-mouth squash soup we tasted.  My soup was good but it wasn’t as good.

We sat in the corner, all cozy and romantic, only you can’t really have a cozy and romantic dinner when you are bound to run into somebody you know.  One of our neighbors and her daughter, visiting from New Jersey, sat at the table next to ours once things got hopping.  We chatted, of course, as was polite, and genuinely interesting in this case.  And fun.  We shared some laughter and the people at the next table over got into the conversation and it was generally a good time.

But the point here is that our neighbor is the one who owns the property where the smoke has been coming from (see yesterday’s post).  It was still smoking when we left the house for our sans children event.  It turns out she was away, came home about 5:00 to see the tower of smoke rising near the house.  She could tell right away it wasn’t the house (her first fear) and thought it might be the barn (fear number two).  Fortunately it was just a pile of hay.  It was a big pile of hay, combusted by the heat of the day.  Some folks pushed it around to make sure nothing else would catch, and smothered it as much as they could.  But a fat old chunk of hay is going to burn until it wants to burn no more.

The house still smelled of smoke when we got home, but it obviously was starting to burn itself out.  So no one hurt, nothing lost but a good deal of hay, and a mystery solved for sure.  The sky is still a little hazy but at least we understand more clearly.  That’s something.

Holy Smoke

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Still Smoking, 24 Hours Later

Still Smoking, 24 Hours Later

Last night as we sat on the deck and ate fresh wraps for dinner (delicious=mayo+pesto+just picked tomatoes+cucumbers+lettuce still warm from the sun+arugula+Shelburne Farms smoked cheddar) I looked up and reacted to what I saw with “Holy smoke!” What I saw was a big cloud of smoke.  We all turned and looked at it together and wondered, What’s that all about?

It smelled like burning wood and the smoke was white.  A house fire means black smoke and nasty smells, not to mention lots of sirens, and vehicles zooming about.  So I figured it was some big brush pile or a bonfire.  But it kept burning.  Long after dark it glowed, and the sound of back up beeps chorused with the crickets and cicadas.  Even when I woke in the wee hours the smell of smoke drifted through the house.  It was still going.

This morning we could still smell it.  When I drove up over O’Neil Road this morning I could look down and see the white plume.  I was gone all day but when I returned it was still smoking.  So what the hell?  It was clearly not out of control but who could be burning something this long?  And why?

My wife went for a run on a route that would take her past the mysterious smoldering.  When she returned her report was this:  It was a huge pile of hay, smoking away.  It may have caught fire spontaneously in the sun.  It may have been triggered accidentally.  In any case, the pile was big and the smoldering was going to continue.

It still makes everything smell smoky.  The sky, before the sun set, was dimmed where the smoke drifted.  And it keeps on.  It seems to be contained.  I hope it is.  It seems a loss of good hay and hopefully that is all that is lost.  Smoke in the air did provide an aura of autumn for a while.  Now, however, it is starting to seem plain old stinky.  We are on track for some showers tomorrow.  Maybe that will muffle the fire.  Just in time for the really chilly nights.