June, 2020
For a large part of my childhood, I grew up on south Whidbey Island in Washington State … a very large island that was partly forested and partly “country” back then. There weren’t any exceptionally large farms but there were lots and lots of “gentleman” farms that had cattle or horses, crops to feed them, and farm equipment and farm buildings. The owners usually had “real” full-time jobs and worked their farms part-time.
My parents bought a horse for me when I was 12 years old. I rode that horse incessantly, along with all my girl friends on their horses, up and down all the roads of south Whidbey for many years. We would all ride to someone’s home (often a small farm) and hang out there for an afternoon, then each of us would ride home in time for supper. So I was familiar with many of those gentleman farms. But hey, a 12-year-old doesn’t usually pay a whole lot of attention to the details of a working farm, no? Well, I sure didn’t. I was around the processes of farming hay and other crops, but I didn’t really have a clue what happened or when or why.
So on this camping trip to Friends Landing, as I was driving around adventuring, I started noticing the hay fields in the area and the fact that some of the hay was being mown and baled. That piqued my interest!
The photos in this blog post were taken over the several days that I was here, but I’ve gathered the photos here all in one bunch to tell the story.
Here’s a field of hay (above) … not yet cut or mown … simply growing.
You can see that this hay does not have round, dark green leaves … it has seed heads … which means it is Timothy Hay, a grass. If it had round, dark green leaves, it would be an alfalfa hay, a legume.
Some fields (below) were being mown. The hay was being cut and was lying in the field waiting to be baled.
Some fields (above) were in the process of being mown … some fields (below) had already been completely mown, and the hay had already been baled and encased in plastic to preserve the proper moisture content.
I drove past the large, stately mansion below a number of times while I was exploring the area around Friends Landing. Eventually, I stopped and took a few photos.
The folks who lived here years ago owned many hundreds of acres of land on which they raised cattle, and grew hay.
James A. Arland (be sure to click on “read more” on that website and do read it) was the original owner (1913) and kept dairy cows and, of course, raised hay with which to feed those cows. Much of the original land remains in the family estate.
Above … one of the Arland fields that I drove past. Those wrapped bales of hay weigh anywhere from 600 pounds to 2,000 pounds each depending on size, moisture content, and how densely the hay is packed.
In comparison to a large endeavor such as the Arland farm, there were many small farms in the area, of just a few acres in size. Every time I drove in or out of the campground, I passed one particular small farm … the one below with the nice blue Ford tractor. The farmer was out every day doing some chore in the fields so he and I often waved to each other.
What’s noteworthy in the photo above compared to the photo below is the color of the hay that’s lying on the ground. The hay in the photo above is dark green; the photo was taken on Sunday afternoon, early in the week. The hay in the photo below is light green and tan; the photo was taken late in the week, on Thursday morning.
So of course I wondered why the tractor was in the field every day (and it was parked in a different spot at different times throughout the day), what that red contraption did that was hooked to the back of the trailer, and how the hay got from dark green to tan.
On Wednesday, I got my answer. In the photo below, the farmer is using that red contraption to stir up the hay in order to help it dry evenly. He razzled up the entire field at least once a day.
That red contraption had some mighty mean stirring sticks attached. Talk about “Edward Scissorhands”!
Eventually, the farmer decided that the hay was dry enough to be baled. Then another red machine (above) was brought out of the barn and parked in the field. It was attached to the back of a big yellow tractor. It scooped up the hay from the field and crunched the hay into rectangular bales, then the machine tied strings around the bales.
And then each bale was pushed out the back end of that machine by the next bale that was coming through.
After the bales had been created and were lying every which way in the field, then the big yellow tractor was used again, this time by using the orange appendage on the front end of the tractor. The big orange thing was like a giant pair of tongs. It picked up each bale and placed each one in very tidy order on a large flatbed trailer.
I mentioned above how much those plastic-wrapped bales of hay weigh. Well, these unwrapped bales can weigh from 50 pounds each to 160 pounds each. As a kid, I used to watch high school boys who were hired in the summer to lift and stack bales of hay … by the end of the day, those poor guys were in pain! The large orange lifting tongs must be a blessing.
Once the hay was baled and loaded onto the trailer, then the field was neat and tidy and empty but for a few remnants of loose hay and the stubble of mown hay.
The loaded trailer was taken across the road to the farmer’s large barn where the hay was unloaded and stacked inside the barn for storage until it was needed by the farmer …
… to feed his cattle during the cold winter months.
As a little addendum, here’s a video below that I took on one of my drives out and about. This much larger red contraption (on a different farm) is used to scoop up mown hay and then it rolls the hay into those very large round bundles that are then wrapped. The sound you hear in the video is the idling tractor engine.
Here’s a video on YouTube of this type of machine doing its work. Instead of tying the bale with string, this machine uses netting.
Interesting process. I’m not sure I would enjoy driving a tractor for hours at a time, especially with all that noise, but then maybe one wears ear protection and maybe it’s calming. And, I bet it feels good to have your field of hay baled and stored for the winter, or sold to another farmer for their animals.
Wasn’t that all fascinating? I saw round bales wrapped in red stripes and blue stars last week. Generally they are just white. When I was a kid I would visit the farm where my mom grew up. My grandmother still lived there, and so did my uncle who farmed the land. One summer I helped haul bales (rectangular) of straw from a trailer onto a conveyor that moved it up to the hay loft. We did that for hours. I was pretty sore by the end of the day. Worst were my hands because I wasn’t wearing gloves, have no idea why not, and that night they hurt pretty bad, all scratched and poked up by the rough straw. Ah well…I was young. Loved all your photos! And learned a lot too!
Wow, so you know about hefting bales of hay first hand! No surprise that you decided not to do that for a living … ouch! Bet your grandmother loved having you come visit.
I used to know why some bales are wrapped in darker colored plastic … something about moisture content and heat … but I have forgotten. 🙂
Thanks Dawn.
Some people love horses. I love tractors, just fascinated with them though I don’t know much about them. Really liked the videos.
I’m fascinated with tractors too, Ben. Not so much the big fancy ones that have air conditioning and stereo systems, and probably the internet too these days. I like smaller tractors that the smaller farmers own, real sturdy working tractors.
I can smell the new-mown hay from here! Love your blog… thanks for sharing.
I sure wish the internet had smell. Those fields smelled wonderful!! 🙂
Thank you for the photos and explanations! Some of us are old enough to remember haystacks and I bet there were haystack competitions back in the day. Years ago, when I toured Yugoslavia (back when Tito was still president!), I was amazed at the different kinds of haystacks on the farms, many of which were on precipitous hillsides. It was kind of fun because they had a big parade in one town and the really big deal was the tractors — new stuff then.
Isn’t it amazing how people all over the world live in similar ways, and enjoy similar things … getting in the crop, building a house, family, building a haystack. I had forgotten all about haystacks, Jan, but yes I remember them too. As kids, we would slide down them and get full of hay and sticks and seeds … we were a mess … we loved it.
I once visited Scotland and the small village of Glenluce where their claim to fame is an annual tractor parade too, just like that town in Yugoslavia. Would love to visit the countries that today make up what was Yugoslavia.
Great photos and information Ann, I love this blog post. all of your camping blogs are excellent but this one about hay and farming was on I really liked. You don’t see many hay bales wrapped in dark plastic becuase the dark plastic increases the heat inside the bale (it absorbs heat from the sun) and it increases the oxygen level and that increases bacteria which reduces the food content of the hay. So everyone uses white wrap unless the hay is exceptionally dry or when you are harvesting just straw which isn’t used for feed. Excellent infromation, great photos!
Thanks Tim. That explains perfectly why some bales are wrapped in white plastic and some are wrapped in darker plastic. Really appreciate the explanation. My readers are the best. 🙂
Your description of that piece of your childhood, riding your horse along the country roads with other girls riding their horses, sounds wonderful. I bet you have great memories and you were all great friends. thanks Ann.
I certainly do have fond memories of that time, M&M. We rode everywhere, for miles and miles, with almost no car traffic on the roads. This was long before the real estate and tourist boom on Whidbey Island. Most of the time, we rode bareback even … just a bridle and reins to steer with and nothing else. At the end of the day, I just let the reins hang loose and Charley knew exactly how to get home. It was indeed a special time.