Yesterday was a long one here at Howmars Farm, but the reward for our efforts was great. We had spent the two previous days mowing the hayfields to get the grass drying to be ready to bale today. Not only did we mow the 30 acres we usually do that are owned by Bud McCurly, this year we also mowed the 17 acres owned by Tom Forsyth that borders our farm to the north. It will be nice to have this extra acreage to produce more of our own feed, and to have more land on which to spread our manure and compost.

We began raking the hay into large windrows late in the morning, and Dennis and Doug rolled in around 1 o'clock to start baling and wrapping. Ben raked until mid-afternoon when he had to head back to the fire station and St. Michael's College. I took over for him, and Dad kept an eye on Dennis and Doug's progress. It was getting late in the afternoon when Dad came to ask me if I wanted him to finish raking so that I could start milking. He climbed on the tractor and kept on circling the meadow to form the windrows, and I hopped into his Escape to head back to the farm. It was after 6 p.m.  I was more than two hours late for the afternoon milking. On my way through the meadows, I saw Dennis and he said we had over 100 round bales already. Last year, we made about 60 bales from the first cutting. Just as we finished milking, around 8 p.m., Dennis and Doug came by the farm on their way back to their place, the hay all baled and wrapped. We had an amazing 130 bales.

Today, I loaded and brought back the bales we had done at Tom Forsyth's. We made 24 bales on his 17 acres. The yield was low, but his land had not had manure, lime, or other amendments applied for at least four or five years. With some TLC, we'll have the fields doing better in a year or so. The farm Tom and his wife, Brenda, own was the first place in Franklin my parents bought, back in 1964. Dad commented that it had probably been over 30 years since he had done any haying on that land. I can barely remember riding with my dad on the old Farmall H tractor from the house Tom now owns, through the fields and the gap between the properties, to the old dairy barn that stood on the farm we run today. I was probably around 6 years old. Driving around those fields today brought back lots of memories.